Our River Split Into Three
This is a true story from our home in Southern Ontario
The weather network warned there would be severe rain and thunderstorms for three days. We braced ourselves and wondered how the gardens would fare with the deluge. My husband went to work as usual, and I watched the storms come and go with our son.
The sky was a sickly yellow as a mass of grey clouds moved in slowly across the region. A shadow spread over the gardens, obscuring our view from the window.
I boiled the kettle. I didn’t want to be without power and not have a cup of tea ready. My son’s response to the encroaching storm was to turn off all his gaming systems. Smart lad. We watched comedy reruns on the TV and waited.
We’d become accustomed to losing power in our rural home, so we were ready with several large jugs of water for drinking, washing and cooking on the barbeque. Our cupboards were stocked with cans of food, and we’d filled buckets of water to flush the toilet. I’d done laundry the day we heard about the storm, and the kettle was on an almost constant boil. Candles decorated every free shelf.
We felt prepared. But this was our first large storm at the Shire. I was drinking my morning cuppa when the power went out.
