The River is rising

The script for the video:
Here's the River yesterday. Notice it's up to the bridge.

This graph shows the River height (on the left)and the Flow, or speed of the water (on the right)
The blue line is actual observations. The green line is the future forecast.
The double lines are readings 30 hours later. They were added to show how more rain increased the river's flooding.

A day later the River is already covering the bridge and the water is moving swiftly.

Let's throw a log into the river and see how quickly the water carries it downstream.

Recall the forecast says the river will continue to rise. The river could get much higher as it did last summer. Not a good time to go kayaking.
.
.

Let's go for a kayak ride!

(remember to click those 4 arrows at the bottom to see video in full screen)

In less than 4 minutes:

• Let's get a kayak from under the porch, 
• drag it down to the River; 
• climb aboard and 
• paddle around. The other kayak is waiting for you.

Bonus: the River in the early morning. The scenics are so different in the winter; in the summer everything is so green.

[video created from a few clips; Canon SX120 on tripod]

Birds chirp in the early morning

(remember to click those 4 arrows at the bottom to see video in full screen)


Early morning is a special time at the river. The birds are hungry and happy in the early-morning sunshine. Often, the River is calm.  This morning there's a clear late-winter blue sky.  We can see beyond the trees and,  especially, we can see the riverfront.  Already the birch trees' branches--  at the river's edge--are picking up some color; soon it will be spring.

The video pans from the road, across the west yard and garden.  Then the River comes into view.  Look along the entire riverfront.  Listen for all the birds.  Finally, we're at the covered porch where we get to see a surprise.
..

Turtles were hibernating? Hatching?

(click on the picture to open, see it full-size; use your browser's back arrow to return to blog)

Some of the ground washed away from our bridge over the course of the last few floods.

• I dug out a couple of now-useless cinder blocks that had been serving as retaining walls, and pulled out another that had fallen into the water.
• Build a new retaining wall to hold the dirt just this side of the bridge.
• In the course of digging some dirt and wheelbarrowing it down the path to the bridge, here's what I picked up with the shovel.  They were getting ready to hatch?  In February?

These are tiny little guys.  Almost like the kind you used to be able to buy at the Five and Dime store.  You can see their size by noticing the orange ladybug on the porch deck.  Looks like their eyes aren't ready to open (see lower left picture).  Not to worry, these two guys were replaced back in the dirt where they had been living.

Armadillos invade Tennessee

Notice that before 1995, the Armadillo weren't in Tennessee.
Now they are here.

The next  posts shows the cat and one of our Armadillo.

After that, enjoy a video of our two new "friends"

Cat watches Armadillo

(click on the picture to open, see it full-size; use your browser's back arrow to return to blog)