Rain, rain, flood, flood

I make my rounds today, make sure that everyone has food, clean bedding and dry, and that all of the livestock is in a barn and safe.   the pigs have a lot more sense than the cows; on a really rainy windy day they'll just stay in an snooze.,  But the cows are stupidly curious, and really aren't deep thinkers.  So I'll make sure they don't get into trouble.,  Nothing like chasing cows around through a flood.

I live next to an uncontrolled river, and it's an active one.  When I purchased this farm I was a little disappointing that I had a 12-15 foot bank on the side of the river, but after a few years I've honestly wished it was a little higher than that!

The nice thing about the floods is that they come and go pretty quickly; if we get water around the house it's usually only there for a few hours.  For a short period of time I live in a houseboat!  (well, at least it looks that way - glance out the window in any direction and see nothing but flowing water!)

The conditions are pretty good for a flood.  We've had heavy snows in the mountains upstream of me, and now have warm air and heavy rain falling on the new snow.  As you can see in the graph up there the river rises pretty quickly; at 8-9 feet it goes to coffee-with-milk color because it's churning up the bottom, and at 12-13 feet it goes darker because it's chewing up the banks and you see trees going down the river.

at 14 feet you see big trees, and lumber - bits of sheds and houses.

at 15 feet you're seeing lots of big trees and the river is running through the trees across the entire valley with the occasional dead cow or parts of houses.   I've seen 15 feet+ three times since i've moved here, and it's pretty impressive.