Through It

Throughout all of yesterday and parts of today, we have had quite a bit of rainfall. At one point, there was even some hail. This always starts my vintner husband to worrying and staring quietly out the windows with a small look of panic. The scariest thing to a person who lives off the land is the weather. It is so unpredictable and uncontrollable, yet it can wreak havoc on what is essentially your life's work.

Luckily, the hail was pretty mild and didn't last long, but a walk in the vineyard proved his worries not to be totally unfounded. There was indeed some damage to the vine's new leaves. What he doesn't know is how much that will actually affect the plant, if any. We'll hope for the best and assume since it's still early in the season that the vines will have plenty of time to make more leaves to make up for any loss.

I really enjoyed the rain, though. The sound it made as it pelted the skylight was impressive. You had to almost shout to make yourself heard over its din. I felt like I was suddenly transported to a new and amazing place called the Tropics of the Mediterranean. Strange oxymoron of a place, let me tell you.

A river runs through it:

This is the dirt road that leads up to our home. It turned into our very own river yesterday. It's still raining a lot today, so I'm pretty sure my husband and his father will have some fun with the tractor when all is said and done. They always have to put the road back together after a rain like this.

My husband said the natural spring we have near the winery was overflowing, too, which is unusual in the arid Mediterranean climate we live in.

A baby sleeps through it:

This kind of weather makes me want to sit with a cup of cappuccino (I rarely drink coffee) and read or do some other lazy activity. Instead, I've forced myself to do housework and take care of the kids, because, well, they just don't seem to take care of themselves no matter how much I wish for it sometimes. Unfortunately, for me, we have no decaf coffee in the house, anyway, and I can't handle caffeine anymore.

From the looks of it, I'd say that Lambchop #3 is a bit like her mommy. She seems to enjoy the sound of rain on the skylight. She slept soundlessly for hours yesterday while buckets of rain were being dumped all around her.

What I don't like:

What's not so cool about the rain is the leaks we found in the skylight over the wood floor on the stairs. I also really don't like having to have all the phones, computer and internet disconnected during thunderstorms. We've lost many an electric doodad that way, though, so I just have to live with it and hope the satellite doesn't get taken out since it's out on top of the house.

And, a last couple of pictures before I go change a diaper (mercifully, I won't take any pictures of that for you)...
Oh, and I haven't done any new sewing projects unless you count the lovely skirt I made my husband the other day. Okay, well, it was more like a skort - you know, those blousey shorts that were so popular about 15 years ago. The thing about blogs is that you can filter the information you give others about your life. I'm thinking you don't need to see my husband's skort until becomes a proper pair of men's shorts. It was good for a hysterical laugh around midnight the other night, though.