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Tuesday, May 19, 2009

First Rain Storm of the Season


We got our first rain storm of the season last night. It started out as a light rain and quickly turned into slushy hail with lots of rain driven by winds. We really needed the moisture, especially since lightning started a fire across the road behind our house right before the rain started. In fact, last week a fire started across the road, lasted for four days and burned over 30 acres. They even brought in a slurry plane the first night of the fire - the fire was headed straight north towards a new home built at the top of a hill. The area across the road is now a gated community with 35 to 40 acre lots that start at $250,000 just for the lot. Right now there are 3 houses built on those lots and they are all huge expensive homes. The lake is actually Wrights Reservoir and the water rights are owned by Canon City, a city about a mile southeast of here. Fishing is allowed at the lake if you belong to a sportsman's club (which is very expensive - at least for our budget). And a rancher to the south of us grazes her cows in that area around the lake.

The photo is of Pikes Peak as the sun was setting. The eerie coloring only lasted for a few minutes and I managed to get a couple of photos before it disappeared. The horse in the photo is Puff, our 29 year old POA (Pony of the Americas). She was completely unphased by the storm and continued to munch on hay throughout. The llamas, on the other hand, were very upset by the storm because they couldn't find a dry spot to kush in. Llamas generally lay down during storms - ours usually lay down under one of the pine trees in their pasture. But, that means they are covered with splattered mud after the storm ends. Today they are all dry and have rolled to remove the mud caked dirt from their fiber and are out happily grazing this morning.

5 comments:

jude8753 said...

I love that photo it's beautiful, thanks for posting it.

brokenteepee said...

Whoa! Same thing happened here last night. Weird sky, big thunder, lots of lightening and HUGE hail. I took a photo too, just haven't downloaded it yet.
Hmmmm, same storm?

Meghann said...

Beautiful photo - I'm glad all is now well in your area. Brush fires are always scary, and it is good the rains put them out - no matter how expensive the houses ;-)

Split Rock Ranch said...

Brush fires don't scare me as much as the forest/wildfires do - and that's what we've been having here. The pine trees are dry and when they catch fire they literally explode, shooting flames high into the sky and sending plumes of heavy black smoke billowing up.

Marlaine said...

Beautiful photo. Thanks for sharing it. It's fun to have a peek at another's world.