Forty Days and Forty Nights?

OK, this is going to upset the Hawaii Visitors Bureau, but we have had terrible weather here for days. No … make that weeks, and it seems like a lot longer than that.
 
And it’s not YOUR kind of rain. This is Hawaii rain—steady, drenching rain for an hour or so, tapering off to a gentle mist for a short spell, then opening up into a downpour—meaning at the rate of two-plus inches an hour. That lasts for perhaps 10 minutes, then the cycle starts all over again.
 

 Essentially, we’re paralyzed. I can’t do any mowing because my tractor would sink six inches into the spongy surface and leave muddy tracks several inches deep.
 
The terrain here is a miles-long slope down the sides of Haleakala, Maui’s dormant volcano. That’s the way the water goes and, if it’s raining like this, when it reaches our place, it flows into a swale, gathers, then goes over the driveway, scouring the gravel off and carrying it on downhill. Several years ago we installed a culvert in that dip, with four 12-inch tubes passing under the driveway. The whole thing was overwhelmed yesterday, with a lot of gravel washed away.
 
Unfortunately, we’re getting no help from the weatherman. The forecast is for more rain tomorrow, some sun for half a day on Tuesday, then several days of more rain.
 
It’s at about this point every winter when the television stations in Honolulu send reporters and cameramen into Waikiki to interview tourists. The conversation invariably goes like this:
 
Reporter: After spending thousands of dollars bringing your family all the way out to Hawaii, you must be upset after five solid days of heavy rain.
 
Tourist: Are you kidding? Do you have any idea what the weather’s like back home in Albany today? This is great!”
 
It’s still always in the eye of the beholder, isn’t it.