Flash Flood in Powell Butte


Escaping triple digit temperatures one bright, sunny and hot, hot, hot August day my cousin Jeanne and I went to a wonderfully air-conditioned movie. Heading home, Jeanne at the wheel, we drove directly into a mighty thunderstorm. Our destination, Powell Butte, rising 1,000 ft above us, was completely smothered in ominous black clouds.

Lightning flashed and struck all around us, intense images that burnt on my retina. I’d just asked “Do we get flash floods here?” when a torrential downpour spewed from the sky gathering topsoil from newly plowed mint fields and spilling into ditches alongside the road, turning into gully washes at each field gate flooding across the road, a fast moving mass of mud pie. Jeanne plowed through this mess so we wouldn't stall, water rooster-tailing halfway up the car windows.

We made it home intact but stayed in the fully grounded car waiting for a lull in lightning strikes. The smell of ozone hung heavy in the air. We pondered the chances of getting inside the house without getting struck by a lightning bolt. Outside, the idea is to avoid being near--or being--the highest object around, and as I am much taller than Jeanne, there was no way we were going in together. We each made a separate mad dash into the house where there was no electricity. Fortunately my propane camping espresso maker was on hand. It’s very civilized, drinking espresso and eating cookies while viewing nature at work. Country living has its excitement.

Comments

TheWordWire said…
If you have a camping espresso maker, I'd say you're prepared for anything. Cool photo!
Fri Nov 06, 08:14:00 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tastes like Chicken

Image
  Jim visited brother Dan in Palau mid 70s and came back with some wild stories of these gloriously beautiful tropical islands.  The ones that stuck with me are pretty much food related, go figure.  There was an open-air movie theatre in Peleliu filled with wooden benches for seating.  Rats were bold enough to scavenge food whenever, so movie viewers kept their feet up on the forward bench.   Hamburgers were served with a cabbage leaf for greenery, there being no iceberg lettuce on the island.  He met our friend Virginia there, she was maybe 13.  That girl took down fruit bats with a sling shot, a treat for her grandmother. They are a large bat species with a two-foot wingspan. She’d spot a roosting fruit bat hanging upside down from a tree branch, pop a small rock into the slingshot, eyeball the angle and let loose.  She had incredible aim.  She’d  nonchalantly balance in a squat to  husk a coconut wit...
Read more

Ethel strikes back

Image
  Grandma was a teacher and she drove the 18 miles from Powers to Myrtle Point every school day.  It’s a pretty drive on a narrow road that hugs the hillside high above the snaking south fork of the Coquille River, past high pastures and a few scattered houses. One day there went Ethel on her morning commute when she noticed “Howard Post” boldly painted on a large rock embedded in the hillside.  She kept going and there was another one.  Then another one. For a stretch of several miles young master Howard took it into his adolescent brain to spray paint his name on many, many exposed boulders in the hillside.   My grandmother’s solution to this embarrassment was to buy her own can of spray paint and on the way home that day, wearing a dress, (she wore only dresses then,) she stopped the car and over-painted every “Howard Post” she could reach.   It took many years for that paint to fade.  
Read more

Pasta ala Norcina from America's Test Kitchen

Image
I’m a fan of America’s Test Kitchen on PBS.   Any recipe from their site that I’ve cooked has turned out beautifully.   The great thing is they do all the testing and tweaking so all I have to do is follow the recipe.   At least the first time. A recipe for sausage and pasta recently aired.   I limit pasta in my diet these days, but every once in a while I’ll indulge.   And this recipe looked so good I made a mental note to cook if for Terry, being certain he’d love it. Then a friend who’d suffered a serious illness was released from the hospital, and here was my opportunity to give this a try.    I doubled the recipe, filled a large casserole for my friend, then one for Terry, and had enough left just for me, me, me.   And it is superb! Four fork review from all who were treated to this dish. It's not real pretty but the rosemary spiced sausage makes me forget that. Serves 6 White mushrooms may be substituted f...
Read more