Crying Uncle

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How many of us, when we were kids, was in a wrestling match with someone and yelled UNCLE, which meant you gave up.  At that point, the fight or wrestling match was over. I am ready to cry uncle with all the rain and storms that have been rolling through Kansas and Hutchinson.

          I’m not sure about anyone else around this part of Kansas but I have definitely had enough rain to last me for the rest of the year. Is someone out there doing a rain dance?  If so; “CUT IT OUT!” If you turned on the faucet and forgot to turn it off; go back and turn it off NOW! I have had enough and I am crying uncle and want the rain to stop.

Surely even the farmers who need rain for their crops have had enough and would like it to stop. It is now late spring and going into summer and should be getting hot and dry in Kansas. I am sure ready for the 100 degree temps after all this cold and rain.

Our sump pump has been running every 20 seconds to a minute for the last few weeks. If this keeps up we will need a new one before long and I bet you can’t find one in our area right now. So my husband ordered one online and it arrived the other day so if it is needed he is ready to swap them out and we will be okay.

I wonder how many sump pumps we have replaced over the years. Being within feet of the water table and all the rain we have had this year, he might have to put the new one in sooner than later. The last one quit at midnight when he was out of town working. Thank heavens our plumber came out at that time of the night and put one in for me.

I have always loved listening to thunder and sleeping while it is raining. But these last fronts have had lots of roll you out of bed claps of thunder. There have even been a few that sounded like they were right over the house and even rattled the bi-fold doors on the closet. Now that is heavy duty thunder.

Those loud claps of thunder can bring me out of a nice deep sleep with a start like someone touched me with a cattle prod. The storms lately have been rolling into Reno County around 1:30 to 2:00 a.m. in the morning which is the prime sleeping time for me and I am in my deepest sleep.

As I am writing this it has been a couple of days since we’ve had a hard rain and our ditch has finally soaked up all the water and the sump has slowed down to every 4 minutes. We are sitting on pure sand up here on the hill north of town so it does soak in pretty fast. But it also drains into the sump fast.

Hopefully, it won’t start raining again and get the sump back to running every minute. We have had 15 inches of rain or more since all this started. That is a lot of rain in just a few weeks.

I am glad we don’t live in the city of Hutchinson, because so many of the streets in town have been flooded and under water. I know 17th used to always flood onto the sidewalks and into the yards. That was even with less rain than these last rains dropped.

One thing we don’t worry about, living up here on the hill near the highest point in the county, is flooding. If the water gets high enough for us to get our feet wet then most or all of Hutchinson will be under water up to the rooftops of the homes. I hope to never see that.

The worst part about living up high like this is trying to get to town. We have to drop down into the valley to get to town. It is easy to forget that Hutchinson is actually sitting in a valley surrounded by hills until we have a lot of rain. The fields outside of Hutchinson have been overflowing and running over the roads. Even the roads to Nickerson have been closed because of the river or creek between here and there.

I couldn’t believe the pictures on the news of downtown Nickerson with water covering the streets and up to the gas pumps at the convenience store on S. Main. That is the first time I have ever seen that. I think we all need to get together and CRY UNCLE! Maybe that will get the rain to stop and let things dry up. To contact Sandy: [email protected]

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