Central IL has been in the news a lot lately due to the record level flooding in the area.   The Illinois River hit flood stage yesterday and we got to see it up close.  As the girls and I were on our way to a field trip yesterday, we crossed one of the Illinois River bridges.  I couldn’t believe how much it had flooded that area.  From the time I crossed the bridge I saw nothing but water for another 1/2 mile or maybe a little more and it was a little scary to see just how high it was.  There couldn’t have been more than 3 feet from the top of the river to the top of the interstate in places.   Wow!!!!!

We don’t live that close to the river, but there were certainly a lot of flooded yards and basements in our area.  Fortunately, we were spared any water in our basement.  Our sump pump did it’s job running every 20-30 seconds for a couple of days, keeping our basement nice and dry.  However, I was worried about us potentially losing power.  No power = no working sump pump, so I sent hubby out to buy a generator as extra precaution.  I have to say that we both feel better knowing we’ll have some power at any point we lose power in the future.

The rains finally moved out of the area and gave us a few days to dry out a bit.  That allowed us to get outside to continue working on our garden project.  Unfortunately, it’s raining again today which means we’ll need a couple more days of no rain so we can get back to it.  While I love seeing all the green grass, leaves on the trees, blooming flowers and the new grass growing where we laid seed, I am ready for the rain to go away and the sun to come out for more than 2 or 3 days so I can get everything done on our garden that needs to be done.  How about 5 or 6 days?  I think that would be good.  Then again, all this gardening and yard work is showing me just how out of shape I am.  Maybe 1-2 days of rain after 1-2 days of hard work isn’t such a bad thing after all.

So, how’s the weather in your neck of the woods?