Come Hell or High Water

in #homesteading5 years ago (edited)

 

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One thing you should know about our area is that we live in a place that is prone to flooding.

Last night we were awakened around 2 AM to the sound of rain pounding on our cupola. We have 100 yr+ White Oaks surrounding the house and when I woke up in the middle of the night hearing rain and the whoosh of the trees around me, my heart gave a little panic and I prayed that they wouldn't fall on our roof.

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Marty Raney of Homestead Rescue (and the whole Discovey Channel Team) begged us to remove the trees.

In fact, it was the drama they were looking for the last day -- except their plans were thwarted because they couldn't make it to our homestead. We had a historic "100 year flood" and had to turn around. We were stranded that night and the next day.


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We set out early to assess the damage and found a sycamore tree over the "high water bridge" near our house.

With the help of our neighbors, we removed it. Yet many times we find our low and high water bridges under water after heavy rains. Now, after a deluge, we always go and check out the damage done, so to say.

This morning I went outside and heard the creeks roaring. We are experiencing unseasonably warm temps and Ini and I were itching to go on a walk.

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It was such a beautiful morning, we really enjoyed our walk. We should also mention that our dog Luci had been gone since we awoke. Especially recently, it hasn't been abnormal for her to be gone in the morning because our neighbors got a new dog and they've quickly become best friends. This morning, however, when we went to walk toward their house to retrieve our dog, we found that their low water bridge was under water! We weren't too perturbed, and kept on our journey in our beautiful countryside... Luci would turn up!

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And of course she did.

We weren't sure if she was looking for us or just wandered to our side of the creek.

Either way, she quickly sat down, as is her custom, and started lapping up water. It's one of my absolute favorite sights when Luci plops herself down in the water and her fat red tongue immediately goes at it. Such a delight to me.

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Another one of my favorite things is the smells and familiar sights of the riverbanks. One of my favorite trees, the sycamore, abounds and I adore seeing its peeling bark. Also, are you familiar with the smell of sycamore when it's wet? My god, it's one of my favorite things!

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As we walked along, our dog now by our side and the water rushing, we were daring each other to find some cool stones.

Of course we were hoping to find arrowheads... but Ini completely satisfied our desire in another way... by finding this crystallized double spiral fossil... What a treat!!

The waters have (mostly) receded and we had a wonderful day on the homestead!

Updates coming soon about all that we did today. We have absolutely loved this amazing weather. It's really energizing us leading up to our meditation retreat! Yet in and amongst it all, we are super happy we live up on a big hill and not in and amidst these rushing flood waters!



Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://www.ozarkmountainjewel.com/2018/12/01/come-hell-or-high-water/

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Woah, man! That's intense, glad y'all are okay. You're gonna be on TV??

heheh we already were! Ozark Mnt Misery is the episode... today was a calm story comparatively!

Oh my goodness!!!! Is the homestead okay? No downed trees? The High Tunnels okay? Praying for you guys...hopefully you can snuggle up in your cabin and wait for the waters to recede :) love you ox

hehe so sorry, hate to worry you all. i sometimes do this where i'll just post and then edit and add pics. everything is A-OK! check the post now ;) hehe just made a little tear jerker beginning! it was a beautiful day and a beautiful walk!!

good to hear....that Luci, such a socialite, lol! oxox

heheh she truly is more social than either of us! love to be out and about checking out her surroundings... and always bringing home a deer leg if possible! deer season is her absolute fav!

Hey that's a cool rock!! We have a few of those from our adventures!! It sure was a crazy night in the ozarks last night!

thanks!!! yeah i love finding these type of stones! happy to hear you have found some too. did you all have some crazy weather also?

Oh yeah, power went out about 2am with sirens going off, alot of people are saying there was a tornado touched down here in town but i can't find any proof of that other than broken trees and power poles..

wow!!! some strong winds for sure!!!

Oh my gosh, it would set my heart to panic for sure!

hehe yes!!! these are the moments that test our resolve!!!

A little stressful I'm sure, but also really wonderful to be in a place with so much water.

certainly!! you, for sure, know the difficulties of living a place without an abundance of water. did you say that you had an acequia ditch on your land? that's really the water boon of the region you're in.... they surely are abundant when those mountain waters start running!

That's funny that they wanted to removed the trees, but they didn't get the chance to because the rain kept them from getting to your property. Although you do have to watch that the trees are still strong and don't land on your roof.

Hope you enjoyed your walk. Feel free to take pictures of the flooded bridges if you see them. I don't see stuff like that too often, and I think it would be interesting to see pictures of it.

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Floods are amazing, they really clean the place up while giving back soil

Posted using Partiko Android

We live on a 200 yr plain for floods, so unlikely to have one. But less than half a mile away is a river and it's much lower than we are and floods all the time, especially this year. But we've never seen it over the bridge, just up to it a couple times.

This area is reknown for fossils, and a litle to the north of us, armored mud balls. They were discovered by this professor, an excellent lecturer. He's how we know we live so close to Africa...

http://www.earthview.rocks/mudballs.html

Ha ha I remember the flood from Homestead Rescue! Glad you guys are ok.
We went for a walk in Sycamore Grove Park this week.
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Lots of huge sycamores.

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