No Corn for Me

With the floods this year, corn is nearing $8 a bushel. That's quite a lot for roughage. I shan't be eating any this year.

What is booming, thanks to the floods, are the mosquitoes. In Iowa, there are 7 times more mosquitoes this year than last year.

Know what this means?

I ain't going home.

Shovel, swat and swim. This is not a good year for my little home state.

Packing Up The House

So Wiley and I decided it was time to unload some of our stuff. While I think I've done a pretty good job of throwing out his stuff merging our things, more can go since we're moving into a fully furnished house in a few months. So Wiley sent out a general email to friends, and I figured this stuff would be gone by the time we left this place. The same day, he started getting bites for things, so now I'm in ultra-pack mode to clean out bookcases and a microwave cart. Who knew people moved so quickly??

And the mice seem to have come back in droves. So far, there are 7 holes in the dirt around the foundation. Thankfully, over 30 bins are out of the house, so there's really not much the buggers can get into.

And Rewind eats spiders. Ew.

Dancin' in My Home

Yesterday: sunny.

Today: sunny.

Tomorrow when I last checked: sunny with a stray thunderstorm.

Thursday: sunny.

Friday: sunny.

Today, I could hear the creek, but I could not see the creek. The temperature was in the high 70s with a good wind...it was the kind of day where you would stay outside and then get sunburned because you never realized just how much sun was actually hitting you.

Glorious. I will take my rays of sunshine and the drying out of the Earth for as long as it is possible. Hopefully the Midwest can stay dry so the swelling of the rivers can go down or at least give the people some time to fill as many sandbags as possible to help the levees.

Amazing.

A cornfield that's not yet under water.

My sister took this picture near Waterloo, Iowa. Perhaps the beginning of a tornado?

How Many Ulcers Can You Get In A Season?

I echo Cara's sentiment. I'm so done with this weather. Today it poured while I was taking the business mail to the post office. I thought, Here we go again. Some roads flooded a bit, but not as badly as before. But now, anytime it rains, I think that this is it, my house is going down in water, and it's a race with the devil to get home to save the cats.

And now Cedar Rapids is full of water.

I can't even get home to help - tons of roads are closed.

The Cedar River is going to crest at 15 feet above flood stage.

People joked about building Arks. Jehovah's Witnesses came to my door. Wiley asked me, "What are you doing tonight?" I told him I'd be watching the Weather.com channel and running to my front door to assess the rising water in Clear Creek.

It's been a fun night.

And I Thought I Had it Bad...

This is my hometown. Today I heard on NPR that my little home town was sandbagging like crazy, trying to keep out the water from the Cedar River. Turns out that the water has crested and is going down a bit, but unfortunately they're supposed to get more rain in the next few days. Downtown has been evacuated. My sister said they have the presidential state of emergency, which is big news. To put this in perspective, here is a picture of the Ice House Museum on a dry day. I'm told currently has about 8-10 feet inside of it.


And this is the boat house:

Giggles.

I was checking out a friend's Facebook page today, and this little quote struck me as funny:

"If we are what we eat, I'm cheap, fast and easy."

Moo.