Texas doesn't want you, Harvey

- Sunny, blue skies decided to grace us with their presence today.

While the cattle and donkeys returned to enjoying grazing in the sun, the neighbor was busy spreading ant poison on all the fire ant mounds that the rain brought into his pasture.

I haven't seen any - yet - on our acreage but there are some pretty rain flowers.



Yellow, pink and white ones!

Our other neighbor we believe has taken either family or friends in, from the flood, and their dogs of course aren't used to the area and bark at everything. A couple times, when the dogs see us, they bark at us like hunting dogs wanting to hunt ducks or something. lol!

It lightly rained once, for just a little bit, but then the sun returned. It was back to normal at Crick Hollow.





I know, it's blurry. Eventually I'll succeed in getting a decent pic.







I wish I could say things were back to normal for Houston. I fear it will be a while.

- Throughout the day we saw TONS of Lighting and Power company trucks barrelling down the road, as well as people towing boats. We even saw a cavalcade of 3 buses at one point. I think they were transferring families that lost their homes in La Grange.



We also saw some army (?) helicopters. (The strange thing is that we started seeing those before the storm even hit. We would see two pass over the house at the same time everyday).


(The Tractor Supply and Walmart at the beginning of the video is where we do our shopping. Thank Goodness it wasn't underwater).



They say that at least 500 homes, and some of the nearby square, were flooded.

- We discovered today that with Harvey, the Big @ss SOB of the Century, our area received 30 inches of the wet stuff. Houston, however, had to endure 51 inches and counting.

- I decided to look up how other areas we used to live in have fared. Houston, we all know about but I was also curious about Pearland and then Spring/The Woodlands.

I found a drone video of of the opposite side of my old neighborhood in Pearland. The side that this drone video is of is actually the side that my uncle lived on. They say Mary's Creek reached 49.2! I bet those folks were scared.



By the way, I decided to look for photos of our old Pearland house online... (real estate and google earth)... and oh boy was I taken aback. The house is unrecognizable now. It's lost it's charm and is so ugly!

We had a BEAUTIFUL backyard in that house, with a sweet pathway beneath large trees and lots of flowers. The backyard is what really sold that house. It was beautiful.

But now... my goodness, now ALL THE TREES ARE GONE AS WELL AS THE GARDENS! And I mean everything, in the front yard and back.

It used to be so sweet, too.



We had nice memories in that house, from when my niece and nephew were young, still living near us and getting to see them everyday.

But anyway... it looked to me like the old Pearland/Parkview neighborhood did pretty well, especially considering the fact that Mary's Creek (alligators and all) is right there in the neighborhood.

- My parents best friends still live across the street from our other old house in Spring, so we pretty much already knew about that area. (Spring is where we lived after Pearland, and before we built the house we live in now. We lived there for 10 years).

Their street was flooded, but fortunately it never went up to their house and they could still get to town the back way. The front, however, was flooded. There's a Baptist Church on that road and it's under water. I never could find a picture of it though.



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Thank Goodness they kept their electricity this time and the neighborhood wasn't real bad. They could only go the back way to the grocery store that's further away, but the shelves are pretty empty.

Someone they work with was flooded out of their house, so she and her family are all living with them right now.

FYI: Their little grandson is finally feeling better, so that's good!

Our old neighbors never quite forgave us for moving, so one of them... (who is HILARIOUS by the way)...joked that we might want to rethink moving back since she thinks we could get a house there real cheap now.

- My aunt heard that a friend of one of her friend's house was flooding, and she was trapped. The woman was freaking out and couldn't reach the police for help. My aunt doesn't live near this person, but since she knew the location she posted the address on Facebook. Later, somehow, the woman received a phone call and they told her they were on their way.

Thankfully, she was rescued.

- It's so heartbreaking seeing all these people's pets suffering along with their owners.

My mother and I were talking about that, before the storm hit. NO WAY would we abandon our pets. To me it's like protecting a defenseless toddler. I don't view their life as being any less important than mine.

I think the rescue teams were all okay with these people bringing their pets because they learned, from Hurricane Katrina, that people would rather drown with their pets than abandon them.

Still, it's sad knowing that the families going into shelters will have to be separated from their pets until they find places of their own.

How SAD and FRIGHTENING for the families and pets themselves!!!! That breaks my heart to think of the worry the families feel, and the fright and confusion the pets feel.

- I really hope that these centers these families are being sent to are equipped well. With Katrina, a lot of them went to the Astrodome, and the conditions were horrific.

My father knew a man at work that volunteered there, and my father asked him about it because he and my mother were interested in volunteering.

Long story short, the man told my father not to do it. The place was a mess, because it had NO BATHROOMS - totally inexcusable! Those poor people were using the hallways! - and the evacuees there were very rude to him. They said they just went through a tragedy and people owed them. They were demanding wine, the most expensive water, shrimp, designer clothes, etc.

All of this happened when we lived in Spring/The Woodland's. It was a little gated neighborhood. (With one joke of an HOA. We hated it so much. It was such a waste, and the gate... well the guard kept letting these thug kids in to use the pool for free). A couple years later some victims from Katrina were given free housing in our neighborhood, and we had a family of them living two doors down from us.

Okay, I'm gonna stop right there. Sorry. I don't want to turn this looong post into a rant, but seeing all these heroics going on in Houston this week makes me remember the stark difference between the gratefulness/ungratefulness of Harvey victims versus some of the Katrina victims.

A police officer lost his life this week, rescuing people, and it pains me to think that with Katrina a lot of those people weren't very grateful towards all the countless volunteers that took the time to help them and show compassion towards them. Don't misunderstand me. I know not all of the Katrina victims were like that, but between my father's friend's experiences, as well as our own experience of having several families living - and causing a lot of trouble - in our own neighborhood... I really just can't help myself from thinking it. We had to install security cameras because we didn't feel safe. Our neighbor saw one of them hiding from the police from the floorboard of their car. He saw one with a flippin' machine gun once!

Okay, so I guess I did kind of rant after all.





I am growing so tired of hearing people casting blame and being political in the midst of such tragedy.

I really don’t know what the right move was, in terms of evacuation, considering the landfall of the actual hurricane itself. The hurricane was never predicted to hit Houston like it did Corpus. They just knew there would be rain bands stalling overhead.

Now, Houston is no stranger to flooding. It floods all the time there, so maybe that desensitized them. I really don't know. I can't speak for them.

All I know is that what’s done is done, and if people wanted to leave they could have. They didn't have to have the mayor's permission. I also know that people living in the same home for 30 years, and who have never flooded, found themselves having to be rescued for the first and only time in their lives.

No one could have predicted that. I know that when my uncle evacuated his home in Pearland once – during Hurricane Ike – it took him 8 hours to travel 25 miles.

At the end of the day people really had to use their best judgment, no matter what the mayor or governor advised. I think it’s safe to say that it’s highly unlikely that we’ll ever see another storm like this in our lifetime.

Bless those people and their families. I can’t even begin to imagine all that they’re going through, physically and emotionally. I feel so fortunate that myself and my family weren’t affected by this.

Eternally grateful. I'm being 1,000% serious when I say that we could have so easily have been them.



- It's now Wednesday. We just went to Giddings, instead of La Grange because we don't know anything about the roads near the Colorado River there, to shop for a few things and we saw a couple of these Humvee's on the road. I don't know what they're being used for. All I could make out on them was the word "Police." I've never seen them before.



- I gotta mention one thing. I hardly ever even watch FOX anymore, but yesterday I caught one part of 'The Five.' They did a short segment of a shelter there, and they showed two little girls just smiling and making friends. They each were wearing new clothes they were given; a little tutu, and then a Disney Princess Cinderella dress.

It was such a sweet little moment captured on film. It looked like they were handling this disaster really well.

- OMG, I just now saw a video of La Grange. It was worse than I thought.

I just now added the video I found nearer the top of this post. That is just insane! I misses seeing that on tv.

- Found this new video tonight, too.



Thankfully, the road was okay so that was a huge positive. They say the Colorado River reached 54 feet; the highest it's been since 1913.

Just now I also found a video that was just uploaded. It showed that the water has completely drained now. I bet those folks are relieved over that at least!





That is hilarious!



These photos were posted on our local vets Facebook page. Three baby squirrels rescued from Harvey.





And one camera-hogging crawfish.






- Thursday now. When Dad got to work there was a snake right there at the door. Water Moccasin. They're coming out now.

- Still hearing lots of helicopters flying overhead. I'm guessing they're Search and Rescue going towards Houston.

- Very sad. The death toll is now 35, with 17 missing. Heard a horrible story about this last night. I won't repeat it because it's just too tragic. And then there are all the pets and some wildlife.

- I heard that some low-life looters were pretending to be rescuers. I hope Hell is real and they'll become permanent residents. People like that are so demented and so evil!