Texas summers and mud

You've gotta love Texas summers...days upon days of heat that makes you almost sick to walk outside.  Your new pond that was wonderfully full a couple of months ago dries up and cracks on the bottom, leaving the horse to learn to speak English in order to help you remember to get the HOSE OUT HERE!!!   Grasshoppers and fire ants.  Sweatly little boys who don't like their hair washed.  Windows and doors shut tight and film over the glass trying to keep the heat out and the cool air in...

Then you are driving home from the store, which happens to be over at the next town, and you realize that the wind is blowing awfully hard, making your car actually sway.  It's hard to see through all the dust blowing across the highway.  Suddenly though, you see it, a HUGE dark cloud is directly over your small town.  Thank you Lord!  It's going to rain.  It's such a relief that the swirling clouds don't even worry you.  We won't worry about tornados, it's going to RAIN!!

Almost home - you remember that you sweated through hanging clothes on the line that morning, and you have three children home alone, two of them sick, in what is showing great promise of being a good old fashioned Texas thunderstorm.  Thanking God again for cell phones, you call and ask your son to get the clothes off the line (and hurry!) and tell him to reassure everyone you are almost there.

As you drive in the driveway, it hits.  You pull up as close as you can, and everyone from inside and outside the car grabs grocery bags and runs inside. 

Oh the beauty of a Texas summer storm.  It was glorious.  Thunder and lightening, hard rain hitting the windows and driving the heat away - and it hasn't come  back yet!  We aren't fooled, we know summer's not yet over, but it is a great break!

The storm passes, the air is cool, and two little boys are just chomping at the bit to get outside.  I did say no at first, but a look at my five year old's disappointed face and sad "Why not?" make me change my mind.  Why not, indeed.  Mud washes off, I guess.  So they were out the door before I could finish smiling at him.  My older children were soon telling me that they were dirty beyond all hope of ever getting clean again, but I knew better.  Still, I grabbed the camera and crossed our road to the ditch on the other side, where "workermen" have been working and have cleared off the tall grass, leaving a dream spot for little boys to drive their trucks.  They knew just where to go, and yes, Tommy lost his shorts somewhere between our house and the ditch:

Wow, I have cute kids.  And I love them more than I could ever say...

And they did eventually come clean, after they soaked for a while.

The animals enjoyed the respite from the heat, too.  The attack goose, who I have not been able to bring myself to cook for dinner yet, quit chasing Tommy around and played in the puddles:

Our lawn mower, aka goat, chomped on wet grass.  It HAD to taste better that way!

But there was one person at our house who was not enjoying the rain.  Poor Angel-Leah is the last victim of the flu at our house to get well.  She just listened to the rain from the safety of my bed:

She finally woke up this morning with no fever, though, and has been enjoying the mud with her brothers.

So today we have the doors and windows open and we are enjoying the breeze so much, although I just had to turn my little fan on...

I guess summer isn't quite over yet!