Stormy weather

The flowers, berry bushes and grapevines received a much-needed soaking when a thunder storm pummeled us just a couple of days ago.

There wasn't anything notable about the weather. It wasn't nearly as furious as the storm I blogged about last year -- the one that threatened to crack open the house and carry away the contents. And it wasn't like the storm that struck down the power after an abominably hot day (pre-kids and while Martin was away), when the house cooked without air conditioning and that night --powerless-- I slept on the dirty runner in the hallway. With carpet grime stuck to my skin, I gasped for a breeze through the screen door while our cat Drippy meowed at me all night long.

No, this was not a memorable storm. Just a run-of-the-mill clapper that briefly blots out the world in a gray deluge.

Still it had enough ferocity to turn our house into a sieve. As the rain came, I closed the windows, sat on the couch and listened for the ping.....pat....ping......pat........ping-pat-ping-pat-ping-pat......

And I saw it before hearing it -- a steady dribble on the table piled with photos that I swore I'd put in an album six months ago. I shoved the pile out of harm's way and grabbed the plastic baby bath to catch the dripping water.

And therein lies the problem: our leak locations are inconsistent. Leaks jump around, starting and stopping with the whims of the wind, the force of the rain and other meteorologic factors.

The other problem: we haven't found the right handyman -- a roofing sleuth to handle the oddities of our farm house.

There is a guy who works around here but he's sort of the Jeff Spicoli of the roofing world. I've called him a few times about work and he never gets back. But he always calls to invite us to his Woodstock-styled party that he hosts twice a year. Go figure.

So if we need to embrace our inner-hippie, we're all set. But we're still in search of a miracle worker to patch the leaks around the windows and roof. In the meantime our solution: pots, pans and baby baths.