Slight Detour: All in a Wet Day

---from Twitter

The Zag Nation is happy this morning. Please don't tell Jay Williams, the CBS sports commentator who complained because the ZAGS danced with joy in their locker room yesterday after defeating Northwestern's Wildcats to advance to the Sweet 16.

Apparently, the team needed to show much more stoic sophistication and a whole lot less joy with the win, which happened to be their coach's 500th.

Apparently, Jay, a highly paid professional sports commentator, hadn't picked up on the fact that Coach Few reached the impressive threshold with yesterday's victory.

Most of us in the ZAG Nation have come to believe that the ZAGS will never satisfy some of the "callous sophisticates" of college basketball punditry. If they should advance to the Final Four, the pundits who love to hate and demean the ZAGS at virtually every turn will dredge up something.

Heck, they may even blame it on President Obama! He's been up to a lot of naughty things lately.

These days one cannot be surprised at anything evolving from the mouths or tweets of highly important people.

Anyway, all us country bumpkins, living in simple, uncomplicated bliss, are pretty darned happy that the ZAGS will move on.

Good job, ZAGS, and congratulations to Coach Few.

Part of our joy stems from one of the key reasons we love the ZAGS. There is still a lot of snow on the ground and, thanks to all the rain in the past two days, the world around us is a mess with flooding, washouts and impending mud.

So, it may be a week or two before Laurie is ready to declare with a ZAGS March Madness loss or BIG WIN, "Well, spring is here. Time to go outside."

We're hoping for two weeks on the ZAGS and maybe even sooner on spring deciding to come and hang around for a while.

Yesterday tested patience and a whole lot of other things around our area as the rain pounded the earth pretty much most of the day.

It was downright ugly, and I wondered if it was wise to take Lefty down the road to the arena for the afternoon 4-H meeting. My concerns grew as I stood outside the barn in the pouring rain watching a riderless horse racing down South Center Valley Road toward busy Selle Road.

A few seconds later, I saw the rider racing after it.

"Hmmm," I thought while watching the frantic scene, "Hope Lefty behaves."

Well, all worked out, including the precision advance plans for departing with Lefty from the arena in time to get home to watch the ZAGS game. One of the adults who was helping out even yelled out the time every five minutes, lest I get a late start.

What I did not know was that the game actually started ten minutes later than scheduled, so Lefty and I could have hung around for a while.

The trip to the arena was fun as Terra walked alongside carrying the bucket of brushes. We enjoyed a nice visit, and, later in the arena after Lefty had settled down, she had a few moments of holding him.

After the ZAGS game, Bill and I went for a quick drive to check out some of the newly formed water routes in our neighborhood. Twas pretty dramatic in some places as we drove alongside a raging river with white-caps overflowing a ditch along Colburn-Culver Road.

I took a few photos, knowing that anything I took could not match the images up in Boundary County where HWY 95, both north and south of the town had been closed due to mud slides and flooding.

It was a rough day, for sure, but the resilient folks of North Idaho generally don't allow weather frustrations to get in the way of the important things in life.

I'm told the 4-H meeting was a success. Thanks to a variety of basic instruction, a bunch of youngsters are now off to a good start for their 2017 project year.

No jumping for joy, just in case a commentator is looking, but a good day overall.

Happy Sunday. At least today, it's not raining, and maybe that all that water will figure out where it needs to go.

Lefty's new friend, Terra.

Two retired teachers who used to sit together at 4-H horse shows, watching the kids and having a good time. Turns out we may be doing so again. Plus, we love the ZAGS!