Today is day four. Not as much rain as Monday, but still lots. So far in our area we’ve had 7-8″ of rain and it’s supposed to continue for at least three more days. It’s not posing a big problem for me since we didn’t have the hills directly behind us denuded by last summer’s fires. However, lots of folks just to the west of us have been evacuated from their homes due to the possibility of mudslides.

Patrick came over this morning and tied down the shade structure in my backyard using rope and rebar anchors. All his experience at Burning Man has finally paid off for me! It will be a real production if I ever want to move the shade structure, but I’d rather deal with that than have to fish it out of the pool! And I’m happy to know that it will be in place sort of permanently from now on. Much easier than having to set it up every time we plan a cookout or party…or worse, trying to work around it after it has collapsed.

My house seems to be relatively dry, and I’m guessing the rain came in the *right* direction the past few days so as not to come directly down into my chimney. We’ll see how things go over the next few days.

Nate decided to venture outdoors this morning when I went out to check the status of the shade structure before leaving for work. It was not raining hard at the time, but everything was soaking wet. He didn’t care and took off running toward the front of the house, splashing in puddles on the way! I finally caught up with him and hauled his little butt inside. He is really a handful…and is going to be crazy to deal with when he’s finally allowed to venture out on his own in another month or so.