Our Memorial Day Adventure

I'm in the house with a mosquito buzzing around me - because of the torrential rainfall and flooding yesterday - but we missed it all because of an overly curious dog.

First of all I hope everyone had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. "Thank you!" to all of the men and women who have served our country.

We decided to go up Thursday night so we could wake up Friday morning at the farm. It was a wonderful way to start the weekend off.

I noticed this right away - smothered in blooms and smells just heavenly!

Gardenia bush in full bloom

I picked a bouquet and brought it inside to enjoy:

We had pretty nice weather - cloudy with the sun peeking out, showers in the afternoon but nothing to mess up the day. We went into town to the farmer's market for fresh produce,

got a flag to hang at the end of the driveway,  and took care of some other things that needed to be done.

Bruce also got my fountain running. It's wonderful to have it going - I love the sound of the water spilling into the basin:

We had supper over at the vineyard next door. Always fun to go visit with the neighbors. :o)

Saturday was a perfect day. Sunshine and warm. Lots of different flowers blooming and everything is nice and green.

Cardinal climber

 I saw a patch of pink in the field and went to investigate. This is what I found:

sensitive briar

The blueberries continue to get bigger and bigger:

The dogs had fun swimming in the almost full pond, Bruce worked on the barn roof patching holes, and I picked some remaining dewberries. Yes! I have enough to make a pie!

I changed up the flower arrangements in the guest room. These pull in the colors from the new chair:

and added this cute bird:

Sunday was mostly a lazy day as it rained on and off. We did stop by Lowe's after church to pick up the last things Bruce needed to finish the barn roof and later I changed up my chalkboard canvas and  a few things in the living room decor:

Canvas

This toy tractor was Bruce's. I rescued it from his mom's house. :o)

Monday, we decided to leave before noon, hoping to miss the heavy rain that was predicted and some traffic. And that's when the dog got in trouble.

As we were gathering things up, I heard a yelp, went outside to see what was wrong, and saw Herbie (the brown and white border collie) frantically rubbing his nose on the grass. I figured he got stung and went to look in the spot they'd been digging in.

Trouble at base of tree in clump of irises

I didn't see anything in the leaves and dirt. I was worried because I could tell Herbie didn't feel good and his face was starting to swell. So Bruce got the rake and started poking around...yikes! He found a copperhead snake! I'm glad I didn't reach down to move the leaves around! I got the dogs away so Bruce could take care of kill it then ran inside to call the vet.

They told us to bring Herbie in so we got the dogs in the truck and sped off; Herbie definitely wasn't feeling good and the left side of his face was getting bigger. They didn't rush us back - we had to wait our turn - but finally the vet looked him over, gave him some shots and pills, and told us Herbie would be fine. Seems copperhead bites are common and most dogs do fine - the biggest issue being the airway swelling shut.Wow, I thought it would be a bigger deal. Maybe I've seen too many TV shows? I really thought he'd end up on IV's and be really sick.

Even so, we decided to wait until Tuesday morning to head back. We wanted Herbie to rest and be able to take him back to the vet if it was necessary. Turned out to be a good thing because major storms rolled through back at home and roads flooded.

Here's all the water at the end of our street rushing to the creek (Pictures courtesy of my sister):

The creek over the road:

We would have driven right into those storms had we left when we intended. Scary. Never thought I'd be thankful for a snakebite!

Tuesday morning was calm with blue skies peeking through the clouds and while a little tired, Mr. Herbie is otherwise fine and back to normal.

No swelling and looking sweet

We made it home safely and fortunately, we had no damage in our house from the storms. Just the darned mosquitos buzzing around. I think I can handle that!

If you made it all the way through that, hurray! I realize I was kind of all over the place but I had a lot to say. heh. On our way home, every body of water we saw whether pond, creek, or river, was overflowing it's banks. Some where incredibly over. The amount of water was just astounding. We were fortunate but I know there are others who were not and their homes are flooded. Please pray for all affected. Thank you.

Hugs,
Cecilia