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Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Flood

So, we've had a little rain.

Every freakin' day.

For years.

Ok.  Fine.  I'm exaggerating.   It only feels like years.  Really it's just been weeks.    Our water table is very happy.    So is our well.    If our well is happy, I'm happy.

Once in a while we get flash floods that fill up our low spots.    The other night we had one and when we woke up, things had been rearranged a bit and there were big piles of sand where there hadn't been the day before.

K2's area suffered the biggest transformation.    You might have to blow the pic up to see the notes.
The log bridge is usually wedged between two willow stumps.   The water had to get high and fast to loosen it and move it.

This is just across the road.   See the grass where it looks like someone drove over it?   That's where the water was flowing from one side of the road to the other.

Here's a closer look.   Notice where the girls found the other half of K2's footbridge.
This is the flood path we found in our squishy meadow.
The creek is behind me and curves off around the left side of the pic.   K2 is standing in it.

Further up, we found a new dam.
We named it Turtle Dam because at the bottom of it we found a box turtle treading water.  Poor thing must have been picked up and swept in by the flood.  Probably had been there all night long.  He was so relieved to be rescued.  
 This is what the flood waters did when they hit the new dam:


We found new sand deposits everywhere.    We don't mind much.   The sand keeps the Virginia bluebells [mertensia virginiana] happy.



And the ducks don't mind the new arrangement at all.