March Rains 2011

The rains started slowly and then built up, to being consistent and hard.. and as the story goes, the river rose.. It is amazing the force of water, compared with Japan this is nothing. California Rivers usually don't have much water, but this year is like the every 10 year flood. Our town is lucky we did not lose electricity, but our neighbor city Oakhurst, in the mountains lost theirs and many of my friends are still in the dark. One of the grocery stores used their generator for checking out, and handed out flash lights to see what was on the shelves.

The road up there was closed due to landslides and also snow..

One end of our property where all the tree branches and debris gathered to pull down the fence.

The geese are loving it and we saw a beaver for the first time since we built here. The end of our "island" used to be a 4 ft. step up, is now gravel and a gentle rise.

The view from our house.. the river parts and makes an island, usually the water stays on the other side all year and we can cross over with lawn mowing equipment to keep the grasses down.

Not sure what it will look like when the water recedes.. We lost one Oak in the river and several more are tipping. Some of our fencing is down and had to have some neighbors help set it up, so the llama's would not get out. Our other neighbor had already put his fence back from the river an additional 10 ft. and now will have to do that again. Water spread out about 40 feet in to this side, while the river grew to about 100 ft. plus.

This is such a infinitesimal amount when we see the damage on T.V., but it is a reminder to us the power of nature. It is beautiful, magnificent and there is certainly some thing way greater than us.. What a gift to share this beauty. We truly are blessed.

Today is sunny, but rain is predicted for the next 3 days.. Hope the weather man is wrong!