Dumb luck

This morning I got an email from a friend up north asking about the storms that devastated West Virginia yesterday. I was able to report that we got really lucky at Goat Rope Farm. We've seen a lot more damage where I live from a lot less rain, but this time around there were enough breaks between storms to let the water go down.

Many others weren't so lucky. Some parts of the state got nine inches of rain in a short time, which is way more than what is needed to kill people, flood out hollers wash out roads and bridges and destroy homes. The death toll from the storm is now 15 and it may go up and it looks like the worst of the damage was done to Richwood in Nicholas County.

You can check out some images of the storm here.

Let's just face it: the skies are getting scarier. And who knows how anybody's luck will hold out.

High water everywhere

As I write this, WV is in the midst of a scary storm, one that reminds me of this Dylan song. It looks like the town of Richwood in Nicholas County is being evacuated as nearby Summit Lake (in which I have nearly drowned several times in a way that seems eerily personal) overflows its banks. Weather like this keeps my eye on the creek and often means being flooded in or power outages. My best wishes to everyone dealing with that.

McDowell County, WV has been hit with other floods, literal and metaphorical. How to respond to one of the latest is the them of the latest Front Porch podcast.

Stay dry, y'all!

The pelting of this pitiless storm

My heart goes out to those who have lost loved ones, homes, pets, and everything else during the recent storm that hit the south. I think we're entering a period of extreme weather events and we have narrowly dodged some meteorological bullets here at Goat Rope Farm.

Another storm that is smashing the country is the one that is battering away at protections for workers, low income people, children and the elderly. The latest pro-corporate US Supreme Court decision is another step on the road to oligarchy. Actually, we're pretty much already there but there are degrees. But it's going to get worse and it's hitting from all directions.

I've used these lines from King Lear before here, but they seem especially appropriate now:

Poor naked wretches, whereso'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these? O, I have ta'en
Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them,
And show the heavens more just.

CIRCLE OF PROTECTION. A number of religious leaders from many faith traditions are calling on Congress and the administration to protect the poor and vulnerable in budget decisions.

HELLO plutocracy.

DONALD TRUMP. Where do you start with that one? Not only is he trash talking the president in a way that strikes many as racist, but he fired my main man Gary Busey.

GOAT ROPE ADVISOR LEVEL: ELEVATED