Locust Fork River Flood - January, 2009

I think our drought is over if the pictures indicate anything. (Click on the pictures to see a larger size with more detail.) One picture shows the flood, and the other shows the same area after the water drained away. Actually, the water drained away in just a couple of days, but I didn't get down there to take a picture until days later. I had intended to post this a week ago, but got distracted and forgot about it. We had over 7" of rain in less than three days at one point. The pictures show the one-lane gravel road that goes in front of my house. This is the end of the road that goes nowhere and ends up just fading away into the woods, so this is not the part of the road that we need to take to get out. At this point it is a steep grade going down, so it is quite deep even as the road disappears into the flood, which spread out into a literal lake. I think that it must have been at least ten feet or more deep at the deepest point. Fortunately, it completely drained away in just a couple of days, but the "low water bridge" was under water for a couple of weeks, so my husband had to take an alternate route to and from work. He noticed a couple of days ago that the barricade is down, so he says he will check it tomorrow morning to see if the waters have abated enough for the "low water bridge" to be passable.

We were not able to go to Church on Nativity because of the tornado and flash flood watches going on at the time. We seriously debated whether to go or not, but decided that two women (my daughter and I), one of which has a broken arm and neither of whom sees well after dark especially with rain reflections all over the place, and a three year old traveling at night for 45 minutes in good weather over back roads that are narrow and very curvy was not a good idea. It appears that we made the right choice because we later heard that there was a mud slide complete with boulders blocking one road, and at another place a bridge was washed out with water rushing over the road. What a night Jan 6/Dec 24 was! Now this week we are having record cold weather, and I'm quite tired of it already.

There's a new "critter" on the property.

The other night while I was calling my cats in for the evening (my husband calls it "cat calling"), I heard something scratching around in the leaves under the trees just inside the woods. It was dark and I had my spotlight (a flashlight just doesn't give enough light out here), so I went in search of what animal might be making the noise. I thought it was probably an opossum because I had seen a 'possum rooting around in the dead leaves in the same spot from which this sound was coming. I know it's pretty stupid to go out in the pitch dark with only a spotlight and no defense except a walking stick in a county where wildcats and cougars have been sighted and where coyotes and "wolf-dogs" roam (or so I've been told, but I've only seen tracks in the mud and not the animal; my husband did see a wolf-dog run through our property several years ago), but I wanted to see what it was. I finally saw it under the trees rooting around in the ground and forest debris. It was gray and about the same size as that 'possum I saw a couple of weeks ago (about the size of a large, domestic cat). But something about it just didn't look like a 'possum. For one thing, it kept its head down mighty low and under the leaves. I've never seen a 'possum do that. So, I very carefully, slowly, and quietly walked nearer until I was about 30 feet from it and could get a good look at it. It was an armadillo! I don't like armadillos. They are forever digging into and under everything. They do have cute faces, though--better than that mean, rat-looking opossum face.

Armadillos are related to sloths and anteaters, according to the National Geographic website. They eat insects, snakes, small animals like lizards and mice, bird eggs, and sometimes carrion--even armadillo carrion. (Blyech!) Apparently the nine-banded armadillo is the only armadillo in the U.S., but I'd not lay a wager to that effect. Armadillos are mammals, insect eaters, prolific diggers, give birth to 4 same-sex young (developing from one egg and sharing one placenta) around July, and have low metabolic rates. When a female armadillo is under stress, they can "delay implantation" of their fertilized egg for up to two years; which results in surprise, "virgin births" and helps a single female colonize new areas. They like warm climates and sometimes cold weather can wipe out a whole population in an area. Supposedly they will not stay in areas where the soil is hard to dig, which makes me wonder why they're on my property, which is mostly clay. However, my little acres are quickly becoming "fire-ant heaven" with so many hills I can't even count them anymore, so maybe the armadillo is coming for the ants. If that's so, I'll hang out the welcome sign for them! Armadillos have long, sticky tongues like an anteater, and only a few teeth (molars) in the back of their mouths. Their teeth have no enamel, which makes no sense to me at all. They also love to swim, and my property is on the banks of the Locust Fork River, so they probably feel quite at home here.

It will be interesting to see how my little spot on this planet changes with these new "squatters." I suppose I'll have to be very wary of any holes they will dig in the ground. I've fallen so many times in the past few years, that I'm becoming quite phobic about it. (Once I broke off a front tooth--on Pascha morning no less--and had to have veneers on them, sprained my ankle, and recently I broke my elbow falling up in the poultry yard. I'm 60 years old now, and I just can't afford illness and accidents like I used to; I just don't heal as well or as quickly as I used to.) I'll try to remember to grab my camera when I go outside so that maybe I can catch a picture of the little fellow. They come out early morning and after dark, so that might prove difficult. I'm usually outside at that time, though, so the difficulties will be in remembering to get the camera and then getting close enough to actually get something on "film"! (Or would that be "on pixels" since it's a digital camera??)

Life just gets "curiouser and curiouser."

Leisure time reading

The Antiquary by Sir Walter Scott

I re-discovered this book on my bookshelf at home and decided to read it. I've read a few other Waverly novels, so I'm looking forward to this one. The archaic language and phrasing should give my brain a bit of a workout, too. lol The first sentence of the "Introduction" reads: "The present Work completes a series of fictitious narratives, intended to illustrate the manners of Scotland at three different periods, WAVERLY embraced the age of our fathers, GUY MANNERING that of our own youth, and the ANTIQUARY refers to the last ten years of the eighteenth century." Sir Walter Scott is a master story-teller, and I hope to re-acquaint myself with his works. I'm so glad I have the set of novels on my bookshelf so I don't have to search for them!

View all my reviews.

GameCam Pictures

My husband set up the GameCam several days ago and left it there up on top of the hill behind our house to see what, if anything, was going on up there. (My broken elbow is still healing, and is in a splint half the time, so I can't put the camera up "one-handed.") When I'm up there, it's all woods; I can't even see the house, not even in the winter time. Between 12/28/08 and this morning, 01/01/09, it took 51 pictures. It was set to take three pictures three seconds apart everytime it was triggered by some motion. Most of the pictures captured the wind blowing the branches. However, on the mornings of 12/28 a doe and on 12/29 a young buck triggered the camera. As far as I can tell, the camera is "silent," but these deer behave as if they know "something" is watching, or perhaps there's a small "click" as the camera takes a picture that gets the deer's attention. At any rate, it's really a wonder to be able to "see" what's going on when we're not up there. The date and time, and even the phase of the moon and the temperature, are conveniently "printed" at the bottom of each photograph. Click on the photos to see them full size.