The watery world of Hopalong Hollow

        When it REALLY rains in Hopalong Hollow, it pours... and it pours, and it hails, and it drizzles, spits and rains some more. What a deluge! We feel as though we live on  a tiny island surrounded by a moat, a river and 3 streams.  The pond behind the house fills to the tip top, overflows into a dry creek which runs PARALLEL  to the house and vivaciously spurts into the  stream which passes in FRONT of the house. 

        Spillover from the hills, slopes and hollow finds it's way into another dry creek which travels only 15 ft FROM the house and gushes with unbridled exuberance  over slate,  rock and pebbles, eventually water-falling  into the same stream. (also known as Croaky Toad Creek)  

      The well on the hill engorges to the point of excess,spits its abundance out of the pump house, rushes down another slope on the OTHER side of the house and finds it's way to croaky toad creek, which has now become  Croaky Toad Rampantly Running River. Our poor old bridge( which has seen better days) groans , creaks and whines in defiance,  stubbornly clinging to it's mooring of clay bank, lest it be swept downstream along with all the fallen branches and debris picked up along the waters journey, to destinations unknown. And I haven't  even mentioned the water from the road which is lured to our property like a magnet, spilling into our maidenly sponge of a meadow . After 3 days of rainfall we have at least 4 new ponds and our ducks and geese  think they have died and gone to heaven. 

 "Where do we go next??" they gleefully quack.

  "Lets try this one! They honk in delirious delight! 

         Sometimes, I think we be  awakened one night in our second story bedroom, with water up to our chins, because our house has been swallowed up by  some monstrous underground well!

     Lest you think I look disdainfully on   all this precipitation, I do NOT.. I actually love it . I know all the good it is doing for my gardens and all green, living things in our area. I am so grateful for this rain.  Now for all my complaining it just so happens, the rain was fortuitous,as I was painting water all week long.  The rain certainly helped put me in a WET frame of mind, thinking of froggies, beavers,  turtles, salamanders and toads.,, but most of all thinking of a fine lADY bear, in her perfectly sturdy and well made canoe, drifting silently down an aqua blue river... 

           She looks so peaceful on her stretch of water, and I had looked forward to painting this piece. It turned out just as I had hoped..   Sometimes, when you are really lucky, things turn out even  better than you imagined them to be. Please, take a ride down the river with  Mamsey, in her canoe, here....

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Be sure to turn on your volume, the music makes all the difference.

 INCIDENTALLY,  I wish to thank those of you that left such nice messages here and at Acornmoon last week. I think you are wonderful!

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 By the way, last weeks soup was LENTIL, recipe was right on the back of the lentil bag,  Today's tea is Bigelow Orange Spice.