African Rain

Last night we had a magnificent storm...one of those real 'African' storms that are captured in the movies. Johan came home from work and told NiQi and I that the radio newscasters had predicted massive storms moving towards Pretoria from the Johannesburg side.  When rain comes this way from that side it so often misses us as it just doesn't seem to make it's way over the mountain.  Our storms generally come from Hammanskraal side, which is north of us,,,,and north of us is dryer which means less rain.

Any how we carried on about our usual late afternoon business, feedings animals, grooming horses etc and suddenly the wind whipped up.  Winds here can very quickly become 'mini tornadoes' which just create dust storms...but then we noticed how dark the sky had become....something was definitely on it's way towards us.

When we have big storms, we REALLY have big storms, which generally means flooding or damage somewhere.  Flooding is usually in NiQi's flat, the old stable, tack room and the budgie aviary.  Flooding means hours of cleaning up.  To the naked eye the land appears to be flat here and for the most part it is, but there is a slight slope and when we have sudden downpours then the water runs from our neighbour behind us all the way through to the road in front of us.the volume of water is just too much at once and tends to run around the outside buildings and then get blocked by all the buildings I mentioned before, therefore water runs in under the doors and causes no end of trouble.  We have tried digging trenches for the water to run down, but they fill too quickly and then overflow into these troublesome areas.

So just to make sure we were prepared for 'monsoon'  rains, Johan quickly dug deeper trenches that would move the water further  away.  The winds were still blowing and the power went off and on a few times as it so often does.  The Girl Guide training of years gone by made me boil the kettle and fill all our flasks, in case the electricity went off and didn't come back on again for a while...at least then we would have water for tea and coffee as well as to make up feed for the baby birds.  I also lit one of the oil lamps so that we wouldn't be left in complete darkness...lol

Then the first drops fell and fairly quickly it became the kind of downpour we have become accustomed to.  Amazingly the power did stay on and after the initial rain that  lasted about half an hour, we were happy to hear that lighter rain continued for about another hour after that...and that is the kind of rain we need, good soaking rain that seeps into the ground.

It didn't flood, praise God, and this morning the air was cool and fresh...clean...

The first reading for the dust trap was taken early this morning and I wonder if the trap wasn't filled with rain water too?