They say weather in South Carolina is ridiculously unpredictable. It can be forty degrees colder today than it was yesterday; it can go from cloudless to monsoons to cloudless in no time; it can rain today and snow tomorrow.

We've had weather like that the last few days.

Thursday we flooded; Friday was cloudless and windy; today, it snowed.

I first noticed the smallest of flakes when I came up from the basement where I've been sealing holes drilled years ago for termite treatment and sealed only with about an eighth of an inch of concrete: I can push through with my finger, it turns out. Yesterday and today I patched 21 such holes, and it's a time-consuming process: each hole has a cavity under it from erosion (I guess), and it takes an unbelievable amount of hydraulic cement to patch each hole.

"Ohe thing about a flood like that is that it will show you your weaknesses," said my neighbor. And one weakness exposed: a crack in the slab beside the fireplace. Water was pouring in through that crack Thursday -- probably about a gallon a minute at its worst.

So after an hour or so of drilling and chiseling this evening, I finished the last bit of patching. Until I remembered one more wall in the other room that I hadn't checked. A quick check revealed what I knew was the case: still more holes...

And of course, I didn't finish the crack...