Yesterday I went out to take some pictures of the rainy day.  It has been raining for days and days, and all that darkness makes the house feel kind of gloomy sometimes.  I thought I was going to capture a bit of that gloominess on film, but instead, I was in love with the images on my camera.  The green leaves seemed to glow in the soft light, and the raindrops formed beautiful abstract patterns with a few fallen leaves on the deck.

The tiny stream out back that had been dry all summer has filled back up and the gurgling and rushing of the water was soothing background noise.

I walked down to the river and took some pictures, as it was closer to the bank than it’s been all summer.  Yesterday I loved the rain.

This morning around 2am, we awoke to the sounds of the neighbors moving their belongings out of sheds and basements, into trucks and trailers, and driving them away to higher ground.  Three days of rain have finally overwhelmed the river and it has jumped the bank.  Here is a picture of the hickory-nut tree, taken yesterday:

And there, out in the distance, is how it looked when we woke up this morning:

The double sycamore tree on the edge of the river yesterday:

The double sycamore out there in the middle of the river this morning:

Our neighbor’s boat was on the bank yesterday:

And today, well, today it’s not quite in the same spot- but lucky for them it got stuck in some trees down the river, so they should be able to pull it out of the woods in a few days.

Our house is far enough from the river that it shouldn’t be affected.  The house is 100 years old and the river has never reached it.  I know many, many people on the east coast won’t be so lucky, and my heart goes out to them.

When we moved into this place, we told ourselves it would take a flood of biblical proportions to reach the house and we weren’t worried.  Wouldn’t you know it, since we moved in 4 months ago, this area has seen two of the worst floods in recorded history.  I do think that our house will be spared from the storm but even so it’s hard to take our eyes or our minds off the rushing water.  We’ll be peering out of the windows a lot for the next day or two, I think.

Meanwhile, I am knee-deep in designing a new fabric collection. With all this excitement going on outside of my studio window, I have a good feeling that images of the swirling water are going to find their way into the designs.  Now time to stop looking at the water and get to work!