Weather report and a smart hollyhock

They call it "active weather". Here in BC, that means rain; pouring, pounding, piercing rain. Horizontal rain, at times, as the wind picks up. New gullies carving themselves out in driveways, the streets littered with branches and pine cones. Flattened gardens, tossing boats in the harbour, mud slides, roaring creeks bearing fresh logs. In flood areas, such as Bella Coola, residents are battening down, emptying basements, gassing up the generators.

(I remember my mother, years and years ago, tying the canoe to the front porch, and ferrying all the neighbourhood kids to the bottom of the school hill, in Tahsis.)

With this round of October storms, so far, we've been lucky here in Campbell River; the Lower Mainland has seen many large trees uprooted, power outages, and one death. We've just had heavy rain, but they're warning us of winds gusting to 80 km/hr tomorrow.

I've got my candles ready, and enough food cooked for three days, ready to eat cold, if the power goes out. The trees in the front yard have been pruned and the debris cleared away yesterday morning; we're prepared.

So is my tall hollyhock. I went out this afternoon to look at the garden; most of the plants are lying on the lawn or in the mud. But the hollyhock, taller than I am and planted on an upper level, bent almost double and ducked underneath the roof of the carport.

It's not raining here. A lucky spider came along for the ride. (On the leaf between the two buds.)

If possible, I'll get out tomorrow and take weather photos.