Hope everyone had a great weekend.
It was a busy one around our place. Our home was volunteered for our annual family reunion so last week I dug a little deeper into my weekly yard maintenance routine. Thursday evening I pressure washed the house, shop and fence and then Friday evening I went through my normal routine of edging, trimming and mowing the lawn.
We were supposed to have around 60-80 people and although that many people on my lawn was messing with my head, I figured it would recover easy enough. Friday evening while the wife and I were sitting on the deck we were looking at the weather predictions and they were now calling for 65% rain and thunderstorms Saturday afternoon into early evening.
I sent out a group text to my siblings letting them know that we hoped the weather held or it would be a rather short party as there was no Plan B. My brother, whom I never thought had a sense of humor, text back stating we could always use the shop with a funny emoji. I told my wife who'd a thunk that my older brother could be funny?
My wife of course came up with a Plan B, but I wasn't keen on it. She had me move all of the daily drivers from the house garage into the shop so in case we needed to move indoors we at least could fit quite a few people in the house garage. While I was not pleased with this plan I figured it did provide some relief to the yard if needs be.
Saturday morning I moved the vehicles to the shop and went about getting tables and chairs cleaned up and at the ready. The party was supposed to begin @ 5pm and my sister generally is one of the first to arrive with the chicken so it is warm when everyone else arrives. The wife and I were watching the clouds roll in around noon and get darker by the minute. Just after 1pm a few flashes of lightning and a crack of thunder shook the house and the power went out. We just looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders, it was almost comical at this point.
The power proceeded to come back on and go out every 20 or so minutes until about the fourth time it went out, just before 4pm, it never came back on. One of my sisters called to ask if we wanted to come up with another plan and I said I thought we'd be fine as the storm was supposed to be over by around 4:30~ish according to the weather app we were looking at. Although we looked at another app that said it was supposed to continue all evening, but I didn't like what that app was reporting.
Another sister text me to ask what it was doing at our place? I typed back "raining", and nothing more. I was to find out later that this one word reply would be a topic of multiple other texts between several siblings that couldn't believe I only replied stating "raining".
Goes to show that my siblings really have no idea who I am and that they truly don't know me.
The rain slowed around 4pm but the power had still not come back on. I could see blue sucker holes opening up to the southwest and watching the Dopler on the weather app it didn't seem to have anything else behind it rolling through so the wife and I were feeling confident. About 4:45 I headed out to start setting tables up when my brother arrived with the coolers of ice and drinks.
By 5pm people were arriving and we had blue sky as far as the eyes could see. We had a couple of damp spots on the lawn but most of it was drying nicely so we set up the socker net for our grandson and a couple of ******** games. When people started arriving promptly @ 5pm we set up everyone's lawn chairs on the concrete and ultimately had a great turnout. The wife and I were able to play with our grandson and show him off to many of my family members who have not seen him before. We only had about an hour of direct sunlight, before the sun went behind the shop and the neighbor's shop, then the whole back yard cooled off nicely and it turned out to be a great evening.
Many family members had never been to our home before and in fact, several were asking my wife when first arriving and while setting up the food whose house this was. I was showing a couple of distant cousins the shop around 7:30pm when my son stuck his head into the shop and flipped the light switch saying that the power just came back on, so it had been out for about 4 hours. Upon checking with the neighbors, we found out that the lightning strike around 1pm that shook the house, was in fact a light pole that was struck about a half a mile from our subdivision and blew the top of the pole off and was hanging by the cabling. The last outage was when the crew arrived to replace the pole evidently.
Some people started leaving around 7;30~ish but most of us sat around and visited and a couple dozen didn't leave until after 9pm and well past dark. I had flipped the exterior wall packs on that lit up the back yard and many sat back down and stayed for quite a while, well past dark visiting.
The reunion turned out to be a success and last count I heard was around 60~ish people as a few didn't show. We had a ton of food left over and I don't think anyone went away hungry. To be honest, I was so busy between getting things setup, helping the wife arrange tables and food that I completely forgot to take any pictures.
Sunday morning the wife and I sat on the deck enjoying our view and glad that was behind us. Later in the morning I went out and pressure washed the concrete off. My sister then brought her car over for me to give a once over before she headed back to Rock Springs, WY this week.
The weekend seemed to fly by, but in the end it turned out pretty great and weather couldn't have been any better as it cooled off nicely for the reunion compared to the triple digit heat we've been having. Several people had even grabbed jackets as the sun went down. The wife and I could finally sit back and relax but when we were asked about next year I didn't hesitate when I said "hell no."
View from the deck Sunday morning while having our coffee and noticing that the yard survived just fine.
Thanks for looking.
wheel, those scare the hell out of me.
