The River is Up and other news

I've posted pictures of our river before, when the water has been low. We've had some rain, which is a good thing because we've had a year long drought and we were in a forest fire high danger area, but no more.

The depth of the water isn't really a good indication of drought conditions or lack thereof. Well, really low water would be from a period of lack of rain. But this river rises about one foot for every inch of rain, so you can see that it will go up quite a bit from a normal rainfall that doesn't impact an on-going drought all that much.

We've been enjoying having running water again. The best part is being able to take a shower any time of the day I want to. The water has had some dirt in it, and it hasn't been tested yet, so we're still not drinking it. I can tell that it has a lot of iron in it just by the smell.

I've been planting flowers and my husband has been planting vegetables. I used to do all the gardening, but I never really enjoyed the vegetable garden. When he took an interest in it, I was sure glad.

Baby animals and birds abound. I even saw a yound pileated woodpecker flying across the yard. Today I got this picture of an eagle. It was on the grass. Actually, it wasn't in my yard, but on display at a local fair, on loan from the raptor center. It was a thrill to see an eagle up close.

No Snow, Just Cold

We didn’t get any of the snow the last few days that some of you got. We did get the cold. Beautiful sunny days; really cold nights. The river refroze. Check out the picture taken on Easter Sunday with the one I posted from 3/26/2007. In thirty years here, living on the bank of the LF river, we’ve never seen a refreeze. Of course, the ice out was several weeks early.

Pileated Woodpecker; ice out on the river

I've been somewhat camera-lazy lately, so I thought I'd better get outside and "record" the changing of the seasons. Monday morning, I could see that the river had risen, but the ice was still floating, in large chunks. But I had to leave for a few hours. When I got back, the ice was gone! That is not only fast, but really early. The state had record breaking temperatures, as much as 10 degrees above the previous record.

But the camera was out and I did record a few interesting sights; whether they are good photos is another question.

I could clearly hear the loud call of the Pileated Woodpecker. They are shy birds, but not hard to spot, since their length is about 16 - 19 inches. Their call reminds me of the wild sounds in the background of an old Tarzan movie.

The purple finches are back from their winter travels. The pine grosbeaks are just leaving for the north. And there have been ducks on the river.

Our View

This river may be small, but it is ours and this is our view. Someone with a good arm can throw a rock across it. With the current heat and drought, I could wade across it and not get my shorts wet. But when the water is up a bit, we can actually swim, or at least float in a tube, right here. Up or down stream, it is shallow enough in summer that one's butt drags on the bottom when one sits in an inner tube.

And unlike almost any of you who may read this blog, we could get in a canoe here and paddle to Canada on this river.

If any of you want to know the name and location of this river, please email me privately and I'll answer. 

Wildlife "at our doorstep"

The River.