Eine Kleine Klimawandel*

Does it do anything besides rain? Poor Maggie looked the picture of discomfort and seems to be saying, "Enough!" I changed her blanket three times (!!!) yesterday. At least she was dry underneath. (And don't forget: she could go stand in her barn, but no, she chooses to remain outside.) I thought she might drown. (1)
Which of course leads us to the bigger question: why are we having so much rain? And need I remind you that it is January and this should be snow or at least icy "mixed precipitation". Instead we get (relatively) mild temperatures and Biblical flood amounts of rain. And it doesn't stop. (2)

Here's our stream which has now widened into a cousin of the mighty Mississippi River. When we first moved here, we wondered if it might be a seasonal stream as it was modest and could easily have dried to a trickle in drought years. Instead, it roars (you can hear it from the house) and Bob's bridges have been washed out several times this year. In the above picture, the bridge should be across the stream where the first arrow is. Instead, it's been carried twenty feet down stream and deposited on the bank. That took some serious water power! Bob is now talking of engineering a major footing and constructing an improved span along the lines of the Brooklyn Bridge.
So this leads to my humble opinion- openly opposed by some!- that Climate Change is real and is here... in our back yard. I really don't want to hear shit from deniers out there; you're wrong about our planet. It's a mess and we're all experiencing this disaster first hand. Additional precipitation, rain instead of snow, a swollen stream- these are small potatoes compared to the raging fires out west, the hurricanes down south and the melting polar cap up north. (And don't forget that we had a tornado this past May). But it's all part of a bigger, nastier picture of a rapidly, radically changing world.

Even the lower part of Maggie's field is under water. This puddle is more typical of late April after Spring rain than early January! So we slog forward, hoping that the newly seated Congress (yay! More women! More people of color! More diversity!!) takes some kind of Green action; there's rumbling about that! Let's sign back on to the Paris Climate Accord, let's rive smaller cars! Let's DO SOMETHING before it's waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too late! (3)



*Oh that's German for Climate Change... I'm just riffing on "Eine Kleine Nacht Musik" (Mozart).

(1) Yes, Maggie is still with us. That's another whole discussion...

(2) But at least it's not snow! Oooh, I feel so guilty saying that. On the one hand, we should be getting snow. On the other hand I'm glad we're not (groan). I'm just not fond of snow, especially if I have to drive in it...

(3) Look at this! Four footnotes! I just wanted to apologize for my last couple of posts. I had a head cold and was none too swift and couldn't think- or write- coherently.

Catching Up With the Natural World

While the weather wasn't anywhere nearly as dire as predicted, there was still a lot of rain. Our stream actually played at featuring a waterfall. Bob has been dragging old logs out of the stream and rearranging some larger stones to create a walk way bridge (in place of the metal ladder than inelegantly straddles he stream now). But the stream had other ideas this morning and bolstered by the rains of last night, there was a respectable rushing and swelling of foamy white caps as it over topped the wall. The stream has been low this year, so this was a nice change. Very dramatic!
Here's another shot, further down stream, with a much wider channel than is typical:

It's funny. I spend more time with our stream further up the road on my morning walk. Bob's studio is right near this part of the stream, so he checks on it every day and reports to me on what's up with the wonderful world of water.
Both Jules and Maggie were outside today far more than I wanted to be, I kept visiting Maggie and offering her nice dry hay in her nice dry barn, but she wanted to eat and run outside. And roll. She now resembles a large chocolate covered turtle. It will be loads of fun trying to clean her off tomorrow morning! She had leaves and twigs in her mane and tail and looked like a woodland sprite. A fine mess!

Yes, that's hay in her forelock. She enjoys pulling her hay out of the rack, tossing it in the air and wearing half of it. What a gal!
And not to be outdone, Jules moved just as I was taking his picture, so here he is: very wet and for some reason his tongue is sticking out. (Or maybe that's one of his pink and white balls that got run over by the lawn mower. Whatever.) He also smelled like the proverbial "wet dog".

Not a nice day for pictures! No one looked their best; I'm certain I didn't. But here's one more picture for good measure, referencing the previous post about what we stick in our mouths:

Doesn't look so great now, does it? Just something about raw meat... but just wait until Bob cooks it!

Velvet Rocks

This picture is from several weeks back, but it was so pretty (despite the remains of snow!) that I wanted to put it on our blog. Out behind Bob's studio is an especially broad stretch of our stream where the water slows down and interacts with the moss covered rocks. It feels private and very removed from suburbia. Bob is excited by the different qualities of the rocks; some have odd holes and depressions in them. I'm sure he'll find a beautiful way to use them in at least one sculpture.

Our Tiny Mississippi

That's the left bank of our tiny pond overspilling its banks and joining up with our now voluptuous stream. The sudden melting of all that snow and ice has created a spectacular increase in water volume. There's a sort of causeway between the pond and stream. Last summer when it was so dry, the stream and pond were separate entities with a neatly mowed raised strip in between. I'm sure the pond will retreat and contain itself once the exuberance of the thaw has passed.

How F%#@ing Cool Is This?

Look! Look! Part of our vast real estate holdings! We really, truly have an honest-to-god running stream! Even though it's been off limits due to treacherous ice-encrusted snow (on a slippery slope, mind you) today I made my way down and photography and despite my aversion to all things snow and ice, I had to admit it was beautiful.

This was a stream arabesque with some hidden rocks or tree fall (trefoil) providing an unseen structure.

And there are two "bridges". The one on the right was cleverly constructed from a aluminum ladder dropped across the stream and covered by two planks. I have used that one to cross the stream and managed to not even fall in!