early sunday morning, and the rain is pounding outside our little house in monmouth, illinois. everyone is sleeping in especially the dogs, who had an overload of excitement when my stepdaughter, husband, three daughters, and my own two daughters all came for a huge visit and birthday party. the girls lavished attention on the dogs, and especially one dog who considered himself the personal guardian of my two daughters, just overflowed with excitement. there was a healthy racket all through the small house as everyone ate and the birthday girl opened presents. the cake disappeared in a flash.

now the rains pound outside, and i wonder if there is ever too much of them, or if the rivers shoot their banks. it could be that we didn't plan this out carefully, in terms of the house we are about to buy, as it is maybe five blocks from a stream called cedar creek, and doesn't appear to be on a hill of any kind. times are a-changin' and a lot of people are endangered now who would in the past not have considered themselves endangered. it's all about insurance, as they say in new mexico, where lots of regions are just simply uninsurable, and as a result of generally ballooning insurance rates there's just the very rich, and the uninsured. and insurance itself hinges entirely on very tenuous volunteer fire companies.

up here the rivers have water, and probably, at times, have too much, which at first, i didn't even think of. i was so grateful just to see rain that i almost went out and just walked the dogs in it, and one or two of them didn't mind a bit, and still wouldn't mind if i did it again. the rains bring the weeds and the weeds bring the smells and all of that is good for them, as they go after the little frogs and such that live down in a weed patch and it's a lot of excitement added suddenly to their dreary life of guarding the inside of a house.

there are trains here in monmouth, and they make an enormous racket, but only once or twice a day, and apparently galesburg is more and worse and bigger in the train department. and galesburg has railroad days, coming up, which i will keep you apprised of, and even get a few photos if i possibly can. railroad days apparently is big. it puts galesburg on the map. but hey, it's already on my map. as gas gets over $5 a gallon, i figure people are going to be staying in one spot more, traveling less. such things as the trip last night from brimfield to monmouth will be more expensive and therefore rarer although at the moment we are using old values with today's prices, and of course that will run everyone broke very shortly. you'll see this in the whole country. it went from about $3 a gallon to $5 a gallon pretty quickly and people are not completely adjusting their habits though they will soon enough.

the pounding rain gives me a sense of peace. i can get some work done this way, when everyone's asleep. mostly i like to just sit here, and do this, but nevertheless it's working for me. i'm happy to be back in illinois. better to have regular showers, than to get used to none at all.