More Company -- And a Thunderstorm!

Today was a "stay-at-home" day. A day to do laundry and catch up on rest and household chores. I must admit we had a bit of a difficult time getting anything at all done as we were enjoying watching all of the visitors to our feeders today. The Eastern Bluebirds were outside a little after 6 AM with their ongoing squabbling.

We had a couple of new visitors to the feeders today. A pair of Red-Bellied Woodpeckers spent a great deal of time at the feeder. (Supposedly, they get their name from a red spot on the belly, but my bird book says "it's usually hard to see...")

This is the male (the red head on the female doesn't come all the way to the beak). He has taken a corn kernel from the feeder. As we watched, he would stick the kernel into a crevice in the bark, then hammer at it with his beak until he broke off smaller parts which he then ate.

After a while, this fellow came along and was cleaning up grains that had fallen to the ground from the feeders --

He tried very hard to eat directly from the feeders, which are supposed to be "squirrel-proof," but finally gave up and feasted from the ground.

For a good share of the afternoon, we could hear rumbling in the distance, which finally got closer and closer. There was a great many loud claps of thunder, then the rain began. You can see that the road alongside Auntie Violet has become a virtual lake --

The campsites on the other side of us (which are all reserved for Memorial Day campers) got pretty soggy looking --

The rain came down hard for about half an hour, then the storm moved on and we could hear it continue to rumble in the distance --

I'm sure by morning it will be hard to tell that there had been any standing water!

Time For an Ark?

Forry and I lived the majority of our lives in the dry desert side of eastern Washington State.  Our average annual rainfall at our ranch is 7-9 inches per year.  We've had an education as we've traveled the last few years about what it is like to be in areas that might have that much rain in less then a week. Last night we had lightening and thunder all the way around us for several hours -- the sky was lit up in every direction.  It rained all night and has continued to rain all day today.

This is the gravel road just outside Auntie Violet --

The New York news broadcast tonight talked about the weather system "churning around" the Ohio River Valley.  I guess that is what we are experiencing, although our friend Tom said it has been raining for 36 hours where they are in Tennessee.  We had planned to visit the Hocking Hills area today, but didn't exactly want to do it in the heavy rain. Hopefully, it will be nicer tomorrow.

Ohio was also in the news all day today with the stories about the wild animal hunt near Zanesville.  A man who had many wild lions, tigers, bears, giraffes on his farm opened all the gates and fences, then shot himself. Because the animals were roaming all over, the sheriff and his deputies spent the night shooting to kill.  Schools were closed and everyone was urged to stay inside.  By tonight, it sounds like all the animals are dead or captured (mostly killed).  Evidently Ohio has no laws about who can own wild animals...