Heavy thunderstorm / Mason-Foster House

Once again the weather forecasters were wrong.  I even turned to the news at 10:00 p.m. even though I was watching a very boring NBA semi-finals game.  No chance for severe weather they said only 10 percent chance of rain.

How wrong they were!!!  A little after 4:17 a.m. the thunder and lightning began and the skies opened up...followed by a loss of power.  Good thing I had charged my solar lights yesterday.

Without electricity, I did not know the City of Del Rio Emergency Management system had sent a robocall message at 5:43 a.m. saying that the city and surrounding communities were under an Area Flood Advisory. Since 4:43 a.m. heavy rains had fallen and we had received 2 inches in the past hour.  So much for ten percent chance of rain!

Today we had a high of 91 with a heat index of 98 degrees. We are going to be experiencing temperatures in the mid to high 90's into next week with storms.

Going to make an early post because tonight I have to watch one of my NBA games.  I sure hope it is not as boring as the one last night.

Mason - Foster House

The other day that I was headed to Frontera Road I noticed that this old historic house had been sold.  I tried to recall what it once looked like when I was younger but with my CRS I can not remember.

This is one of many old mansion with Historical Markers in Del Rio

 The house is in bad shape. 

 I hope whoever bought it restores it to its former glory.

Good night.  May you all have Terlingua Dreams.

City of Del Rio sets a new rain record for this day

The evening news ( Monday - Oct 8th) warned of heavy rains, thunder, lighting, and hail for the area during the nighttime hours.  I was going to bring the car from the garage/carport to the front of the house so I would not have to walk in the rain and mud in the morning until I heard that four letter word...HAIL...and decided to leave it in the garage.

I went to bed early (for me) I think it was around 1:30 a.m.  I awakened to the sound of heavy rain and thunder turned to look at the clock and it was 3:01 a.m. Then the lighting show began and it seemed like they were striking very close by.

You could hear heavy sheets of rain hitting my bedroom window.  Got up to check on the usual places that leak mostly in the kitchen and glad I did.  The bucket was almost full and I found two new leaks :-(

Went back to sleep only to be awakened at 4:15 a.m. by a "robocall" from the City of Del Rio alerting the citizenry that we were experiencing a severe thunderstorm...no s*#t...it took them more than an hour to let us know that?

We were supposed to leave for San Antonio in the morning so went back to sleep. The darn phone rang again at 5:23 a.m. another "robocall" to let us know the thunderstorm was over.  As soon as I hung up the lighting and rain started up again.  Maybe it was over in the City of Del Rio but not in the County?  Had enough unplugged the phone from the jack!

My alarm went off at 7:30 a.m. and when I looked out the window the front yard looked like a lake. Are you kidding me?  Turned on the TV and saw that Uvalde was heavily hit after having already received five plus inches the day before, there were many street and road closures in the area.

Basically, all the rain that fell in Del Rio was heading east toward San Antonio, Texas.  Made an executive decision and called to cancel both our appointment and hotel reservation.

Del Rio set a new record for this day of three plus inches of rain.  The sun came out this afternoon which helped a little in drying our mud filled yard.

Good night.  May you all have Terlingua Dreams.

Finally some rain

The southern part of Val Verde County is in severe drought condition when it rains it is mainly in the northern part of the county by Lake Amistad.  Thursday night we finally got some much-needed precipitation.

We go weeks without rain and when we are lucky enough to get some it seems to always come with drama. We had high winds, electrical storms, and heavy rains.  The next day you would have never known it was it not for my full rain catchment system and that the shade trees, as well as those pesky mesquites, had come to life.

April is one of my favorite months as Fiesta is celebrated in San Antonio. Though I have not attended a Fiesta event in years I love watching all the coverage on TV.  Saw a girl that looked just like a friend of mine and texted her to see if it was her.  She texted me back saying she was too old to attend Fiesta...too old?  My friend is a partier, how can that be?  After sitting on my derriere for a week catching all the action...I understood what she meant!  Glad I was able to attend this event when I was younger.

Good night.  May you all have Terlingua Dreams.


NBA Corner

Though my beloved Spurs are no longer contenders in the NBA playoff that does not mean I am not watching my other teams.  There is a game or two practically every day.  So if you do not see me in the blogosphere don't worry I tend to disappear until after the NBA Finals.


         

Bailing water

It got very dark around two o'clock this afternoon, it looked more like 8:00 p.m.  It did not take long for it to start raining cats and dogs. The leak in the kitchen that sprung up last year but had not leaked since started up again.  The fireplace another culprit started leaking as well but we keep two containers in there in case it rains and we are not home.

The thunder and lighting began so I went to my room to watch TV knowing fully well that the signal would go out anytime. I barely slept last night and I got up early this morning, so decided to take a nap. Just then a bolt of lightning hit and the rain came down even harder. Decided to go check the leaks and then went to what was originally a reading room for my father but that since his passing has become a catch all room.

All of a sudden I see water on the floor, lots of water but this room has never had a leak and I do not see one in the ceiling.  Then I see that the water is coming in through the window.  I panicked trying to think what exactly I had in the boxes that were getting wet.  Where are the towels? Oh yeah, they are in the trunk of my car in the garage. I then accidentally tripped over a bag of horse pine pellets I had forgotten I had. If you are not familiar with horse pine pellets it is used to make the chore of cleaning stables easier.  I truly believe my dad had a hand in me stumbling into it. I spread it around and the water was easily absorbed.

I went outside and started bailing water to keep additional water from coming in. The rain was cold so I came inside threw on a heavy sweatshirt and put on my rubber boots. I was soaked from head to toe when I finished but felt a sense of accomplishment to have adverted a tragedy, well at least a tragedy in my book.

Three hours later it began to rain again!  The windows are almost floor to ceiling and this had never happened before. Tomorrow I am going to buy some sand and some more horse pine pellets. It is almost 2:00 a.m. but I am afraid to go to sleep.

Good night.  May you all have Terlingua Dreams.

Spurs Corner

Who would have thought that the second oldest player in the NBA, Manu Ginobili would be the highest scoring Spurs in Game 3?  I love you Manu, I have finally come to terms with Game 6 and 7 of the 2013 Finals.

If our luck was not bad enough we lose another player in David Lee :-(

What a difference a day makes

Yesterday it was warm and sunny and today a cold front came in accompanied by heavy rain and thunder...yep, Texas weather!

I am officially out of peak Internet GB's so I got up early this morning to do all I needed to do, online speaking using my Off-Peak GB's.  I have not noticed a slowdown but I have not logged out either.

I am a little worried about the dogs.  Tammie and Oscar were not here at 6:00 a.m. and Pedrito was sleeping in Tammie's bed.  I noticed that he did not have his collar with his red registration. That collar is hard to take off, it belonged to the only dog I have ever had in my life...he died twenty years ago.

It is not rare that the dogs would not be here but what is rare is that Pedrito was not hungry and he looked strange like he was afraid.  I do not think it had anything to do with the rain and thunder, he is used to that.  I examined him closely and it does not appear like he was in a fight.

I need to load the car as we have an out-of-town trip coming up but it will have to wait until the rain is over.  On the plus side, I was able to fill up my two 32 gallon trash cans (used only for this purpose) along with miscellaneous five-gallon buckets on my homemade rain catchment system. Could have probably harvested more but I am out of containers.

Good night.  May you all have Terlingua Dreams.


Spurs Corner

I was so upset yesterday I could not even discuss the game we played against the New York Knicks. Somehow I had a feeling this was going to happen like it did back...was it two years ago when Derrick Fisher was still their coach?

I am not upset because we lost a game, it happens and it will happen again...but to the New York Knicks?  They are one of the worst teams in the NBA.....grrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!

I was never a fan of the LaMurcos Aldridge trade, but what do I know?  I trust Pop but even he must be wondering why this very well remunerated player has not lived up to the expectations.  Kawhi can not carry this team alone on his back, he needs other players to step up and deliver!

Hope we play better this evening against the Pacers.  End of rant :-(

Storm systems

We have been having storm after storm system move through the area.  Yesterday, when I heard on the news that we could have from 4 to 10 inches of rain this weekend...I really did not believe it...guess I should have.

I can not go anywhere as I do not drive in the rain, unless it is an absolute emergency.  So what is left to do?  Well, with my worthless DISH service it certainly does not involve watching TV or web surfing.  Lost both several times yesterday.  If anyone is considering satellite TV, think twice in particular if you live in the Del Rio area.

With the new kitchen leak, kept on getting up throughout the night to dump the bucket.  In one of those occasions I happened to notice that I had a message.  So at four o'clock in the morning I am listening to a message I got at 10:30 p.m.

I have taken to turning off the ringer after 9:00 p.m. as people seem to think they can call anytime. The same goes for early morning callers. I do not care if you get up at 5:00 a.m. I am not and have never been a morning person. For goodness sake, I have an elderly loved one who needs her rest....grrrrr!!!!!!!!

Blogger has a new tool called "featured post"...as usual, I messed up and can not make the picture appear smaller...sorry about that!

In anticipation of the 2016 CASI Chili Cook-off, I decided to feature a post I wrote back on July 24, 2013 with tips for those contemplating attending this year's festivities.  If you have any questions please do not e-mail me at terlinguadreams@gmail.com as I seldom check that account.  Please use terlinguadreams@outlook.com .  Thank you.

This is where I say good night, may you all have Terlingua Dreams...but since I never could go back to sleep after 4:00 a.m. I will begin my day.  Have a good one and stay dry if you live in Texas.

Heavy Rain, Sirens, Flooding

What a week we have had in this part of the world. Although by comparison to other cities in Texas and Oklahoma, we have been very fortunate.  There has been a lot of criticism after the tornado that hit Ciudad Acuna this past Monday with regards to the emergency sirens not being activated neither in that city nor in Del Rio.

Thursday night around 11:30 p.m. the alarms went off, first for about 20 seconds and a little while later for about three minutes, which seemed like an eternity. Of course they went off in the middle of a very heavy rain storm.  I wondered what it was announcing?  Tornado, hail, flooding?

Went online to find that I had no Internet connection.  Turned on the TV only to get a Temporary Loss of Signal on the screen...what the heck is one supposed to do in these circumstances?  To make matters worst at this late hour saw a bunch of cars, some speeding towards Del Rio (We live in the county).  This only added to the uncertainty and my stress level.

It is not like even if I knew the reason for them sounding the alarms that I would get in my car and head to town. The best we could do was take shelter in the bathroom or in my bedroom.  Mother said she was sleepy and she did not care what the emergency was...she was going to bed!

I went to my room and got my overnight bag that I keep packed at all times, my purse, flashlight and car keys in case we had to make an emergency exit.

Friday, I had to go to the doctor and the nurse told me that they sounded the alarms due to large hail that was headed our way but the strong winds blew away from Del Rio.

Around noon today, it had already started raining quite hard when the emergency alarms went off again. They sounded differently, so I am not certain since we live so close to Mexico if it was our alarms or theirs going off.

I know where the leaks in the house are located, I therefore have containers and buckets in place. Our neighbor and her daughter were in Del Rio when the storm started. When they got home they opened the door to a flooded house. There was more rain in the forecast for tonight even though it was later revised. Not wanting to take any chances they decided to stay with relatives in town.

During today's storm, again I could not go online!  I guess satellite Internet and/or TV is pretty worthless during inclement weather, which is when you rely on it most. Fortunately, there is light at the end of the tunnel and we will be drying off soon.

Good night.  May you all have Terlingua Dreams.


Cyber Journal Note

Message I received while trying to connect to the Internet:

Web acceleration client error (515.2). Upstream TCP Connection Establishment Timeout.  The Web Acceleration Client could not create a TCP connection with the web server or proxy server. Retrying the Web page may correct the problem