Sunday, August 24, 2008

T.S. Fay -vs- our back yard

TS Fay hit our area late on Thursday August 21st. It didn't come with a lot of wind, but liked to stall and hang over an area for far too long and create a lot of rain. We were NOT the only area in FL affected by Fay... in fact ALL of Florida was affected by Fay. I think rather a record for Florida. Seen big storms, that come and go, but this one ziged and zaged all across Florida till everyone felt a little bit, or a lot of Fay. Here is my yard Friday morning:A bit of water creeping in, not even too much more than a heavy flow of thunderstorms, I got wet playing in the water with the kids and having fun catching frogs and salamanders. I'm standing on the block in the back yard by the red maple tree. Still high and dry:

Frog I caught... yes I have four boys and they all shied away from the frog, not wanting to try to catch it. Slippery thing it was, but worth the catch!
Three little salamanders that were caught in the inflatable Alligator pool:
Friday afternoon, before I went to work, the water had come up some more:
the block I was standing on earlier is clearly under water:
Friday night when I came home the water was up to the blocks on my porch. Pictures proved to be futile, so I didn't take any. We had an early trip that was long planned to Orlando and left early in the morning, when it was still dark. I had looked out and water was up to the porch. When we got home late that day I was in a bit of a frenzy seeing that the road connecting to our road was closed, so we did take another road and came to our house and the front was still DRY.. what a sigh of relief! However upon going into the back, the water had gone into the porch, and was up by about 2 inches. Our cat was obviously not amused!

Side of the house:

One of the many play toys that are just floating around in the back yard, the water was over our back fence, which is 4 ft tall... now it's 4 ft deep!
Sunday Morning and the water had receded a bit, the play house is still afloat and there is so many "critters" in the water.
These are the cement blocks right in front of my porch, still a bit under water, but not completely submerged.
The reflections of the trees in the water is pretty, really, but not having water property, I'm not really amused. Our back yard is the place for the boys to run around safely and have fun... now they can't till the water is gone! Which may be a week or more.
The critters found alive and dead in the porch were interesting. many spiders, worms, a few fish but the leech was a gross out moment for me, even though I summoned up the courage to actually pick it up and put it in a bowl and add water to see it in it's "natural" environment, I couldn't pass up the observation, since I had NEVER seen a leech in person, It was a neat opportunity, the kids weren't as amused as I was though.

The leech video (it's only 10 seconds)