The Rain Gods Must Have Listened

A couple of days ago I wrote a blog lamenting the fact that we haven't had any real, measurable rainfall here since April. Well, the rain-gods must have listened because early yesterday afternoon, the skies opened up and we had a real, honest-to-goodness downpour! It only lasted about 30 minutes before petering out to a drizzle, then an hour later it was back to bright sunshine. But, it was nice while it lasted and it was nice to see, and hear, the rain pounding off the driveway and street out front.

It's been a while since we've seen it rain this hard - if only for about an hour!


As I was looking out the kitchen window at the pounding rain, I looked up at the gutters and an old saying came to me - "be careful what you wish for as you just might get it". Water was just pouring over the gutters from the upper-roof of our house and cascading down into the 2nd and 3rd level gutters before spilling onto the ground. I guess with the long dry spell, a lot of pine cones, needles and leaves have drifted down into the gutters and clogged the downspouts.

Looks like I've got some 'gutter-cleaning' to do before winter arrives!


The good news is, I found this out early and there will be lots of nice, warm days left to get this fixed before the weather turns kind of ugly. The bad news is, I will have to go up on the roof to clear the top gutters and I don't really look forward to doing that. It's close to a 20' drop onto a concrete sidewalk, so it means I'm going to have to be extra careful!

A couple of days ago, as I was driving home from Duncan, I stopped to take a picture of a little church I've always admired for it's simplicity and it's location right on the banks of the Koksilah River. It's St. Andrew's Anglican Church which celebrated it's 100th anniversary in 2006.

Cowichan Station's St. Andrew's Anglican Church is 103 years old


I managed to find some information about the church and was amazed to see the small 1/2 acre property was purchased in 1904 for the princely sum of $1. The Church was constructed in 1905 using all volunteer labor and with most of the materials donated as well. The church bell was given to the community by the Canadian Pacific Railway. After the church opened in 1906, a community dance raised the $20 needed to retire the costs leftover from the construction - different times, for sure!!

Paulette picked up this 'Mum' plant at Canadian Tire on Monday


I didn't go anywhere yesterday and couldn't even get out to mow the lawns as it was one of those days where it was raining one minute and the sun was shining the next. Well, the grass isn't going anywhere and it'll still be there today, tomorrow or the next day and I'll get to it then.

Paulette went into Staples intending to make some color copies of a few quilting patterns but the color copier was broken. She didn't come home empty handed though as she stopped at the new Canadian Tire store and picked up a 'Mum Plant' on sale for $10. It's sitting outside our front door now and I'm told it's a 'great deal'!! Looks to be a quiet week coming up.