Um, About That View of the Water He Wanted....

Well, that's what he added to his list of what to look for when we were getting ready to move out of our urban apartment complex.  I found this lovely solar granny apartment on an organic farm, complete with woods and fields around us, chickens, goats, turkeys, dog, barn cats, small children, wildflowers and lots of songbirds.  Just lovely, but no lake or stream really.  Just woods standing in blackwater swamps.  Those don't count, he said, resigned to his fate.

It rained last night.  RAINED.   Honest, the weather forcast was for cloudy with chance of showers, heavy at times, flooding possible in low areas.  Not that different from most days, so we ignored it and went to bed.

This is what we found when we woke up this morning: back yard...

Poor little garden tractor trailer...

The southwest corner and the chard treading water as fast as they can...

Even the front yard plantings of onions & garlic flooded!

But so far the house and driveway have stayed out of the water...  Of course, the drainage ditch running along the county road frontage is actually uphill from the property, and seems to drain the 40 acres of swamp/woods behind us more than our spaces.  That swamp is presently feeding a clear stream diagonally across these 4 acres, mostly the back lawns, but also the west truck gardens, berries and a corner of the orchard.  (Note to self: orchard chickens do not swim well, and complain bitterly about soggy ground.)

The six year old neighbor is delighted because all that water returning means he can spend the day paddling the canoe across it.  Usually that is only for a couple weeks in spring when the ground has not unfrozen enough the absorb warm rains.  Then the canoe gets put away for lake use fishing in August.  Not this year! 

We've had way more rain than usual, and it has often been hard rains, instead of the farmers' delightful drizzle.  Last night it was 2" in about an hour and a half.  And the ground was already saturated from rains we have been having every couple of days since February.

Maybe they should have ducks instead of chickens?  And maybe grow rice instead of greens.....