A good rain, that is.  After yesterday morning’s light rain, we got a good storm in, and we have actual puddles all over the yard.  We got forty-four hundredths, officially.  That might not seem like much to people who live in more temperate climates, but it’s cause for rejoicing here.

Of course, there are drawbacks.  I think I’ll wait a day or two before using my pretty new cart again.  The puddles won’t do it any good, and the mud is slippery.

Yesterday WordPress seemed to be having problems, and I could only get one picture in the sequence I took yesterday posted.  Let’s see if it’s better now . . .

There’s one . . . here you see that even the pinkelponkers were washed clean.

I hiked out and looked upriver.  The cloud reflections were breathtaking.

As I said yesterday, all of the trees glittered like jewels.  I tried to capture the moment . . . this was as close as I could come.

Today was cloudy for most of the day; no jeweled trees, lots of mud.  But it was a good day for sitting by the fire.  I got out for a walk, though, and was a little startled to see Channel 23 news driving in.  Then I remembered — there had been a police sweep that morning, moving out the homeless and their dogs.  The reporter was looking for someone homeless to interview.

We’re in two minds about moving them out.  Many of the dogs are a problem.  They’ve come in and attacked Andrew’s sheep several times, and then run right back to the camps.  They aggressively defend those camps — against horseback riders going by.  The people themselves aren’t usually a problem, though there is some petty theft.  The trash is a problem; there was some heavy equipment in today, scraping it up.  The last time they did that, though, they just pushed it all onto our property.  That’s not helpful.

One problem for many of these transients – shelters don’t accept dogs.  Not all of their dogs are large or aggressive, and they may be the only friends they have.  A local church set up a camp in their parking lot, but the neighbors weren’t thrilled, and they had to shut down.  Where do these people go?

These days, almost anyone could find themselves homeless.  It’s a big problem, and I don’t know of anyone with a solution.