I didn't need an alarm to wake up in time to see the comet. About the time I had planned to get up I awoke to the sound of a violent wind storm. Where did this come from? There was no rain, but the straight line winds were fierce. Lawn furniture was blowing around in the yard and the tree branches were swaying so much that I was afraid that one of our remaining large trees was going to fall. A few minutes after the wind woke me up, our power went out.
Losing power in July is something all Texans fear. We are lost without air conditioning. I immediately called in an outage report and then looked at the outage map on the Oncor web site to see if power outages in the city were extensive. Yikes. There were thousands of outages all over the city. Despite the widespread outages, we got an estimate of around four hours to restore power.
Four hours isn't bad at all, but sometimes these estimates are way off. We could feel the temperature slowly start to rise in the house, but there wasn't much we could do. The weather radar indicated that some heavy rain would be following the brief wind storm. Janet and I went back to bed and waited for the rain, thankful that Dawn wasn't afraid of storms like some of our other dogs.
Oddly, the storm never arrived. Somebody got a lot of rain, but the storm seemed to be moving to the east of us. When morning arrived, we thought we could take Dawn on a short walk before it started raining. One of my weather apps said we had about a thirty minute window. As we walked, the window kept increasing. When we reached the point where we were going to turn around, it looked like we had another hour before the rain would arrive. This was enough time to complete the entire five mile walk, so off we went. I love these weather apps on my phone. The make life so much easier and predictable. It never did rain.
As we were returning home, I got a message on my Apple watch that our power had been restored. This all worked out almost perfectly. The house was cool again when we returned home and I didn't have to hook up the generator at all. The heavy overcast skies made the walk a lot cooler as well. I didn't get to see the comet, but we did end up having a nice breakfast.
Later in the day the skies cleared and the temperature rose rapidly. It was over 100 degrees when I took my afternoon walk. I had to run a couple of errands during the day and was surprised at how crowded the stores were. Even though Dallas is currently experiencing a record number of new coronavirus cases, everyone is shopping normally again. Go figure.
I mowed the grass in the back yard this afternoon, but it was just too hot to mow the front. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow. I really need to find someone to remove the large Oak tree in the back yard. I was really afraid that this tree was going to fall last night. Since the tree is very near power lines, I'm going to have to find a tree service that is certified to do work near electric power. I'll probably need a bucket truck too. This tree is very large and in an awkward place. Did I tell you how much I hate expensive repairs? It needs to be done though. I don't want Janet telling me "I told you so" after the tree falls.
Hard to believe that the year is half over and we've basically done nothing since March. Hey, Ford will be revealing the new Bronco tomorrow. That will be something to watch. We'll be going up to the Dalmatian kennels to photograph Lucky, our newest member of the rescue program as well. Our trees are still standing and the air conditioner is working fine. All is well.
Winston is today's Dalmatian of the Day |
Watch of the Day |
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