Run off, Spring run off, common, it snows, it melts, it rains, water has to run somewhere. It seems to have all run into the swamp on the upper side of our narrow little cottage road. Don’t get me wrong, I have no bad feelings for beavers, they are to be admired, industrious, hard working, good at construction and filling holes, anywhere…including in one of the large culverts our small narrow road. We should have clued in sooner to the water level discrepancy on either side…should have, could have…live and learn right? The snow well, enough already!
Now, if it had just been the one beaver, well, it might not have been so bad, there is his cousin in the swamp a bit higher that was also threatening to overflow the road further down…We pull apart his/her dam every morning, and he works from dusk to dawn filling it back in…maybe we should just get floats for the truck and swim across these spots!
Did I mention we both were battling some kind of flu throughout this. I came down with it on Mike’s birthday…of course I coughed on him;) Thus the rather quiet period in the last month, even though we had exciting things going on, like beavers, and eclipses…sigh, oh, and it snowed a substantial amount as well…Spring, what f***ing Spring? As we battled with the culvert we were certain the levels would go down, then came 6″ of snow…Mike even donned hip waders our lovely neighbours dropped off and we attempted a culvert clean out…yup…water wasn’t quite as cold as I thought it would be;)
The water ran across road, then started to erode the road. Our wonderful neighbour Nick showed up with some PVC pipe and his skid steer and we made a makeshift drainage system, but parked the truck on the “other” side of the culvert, the eclipse was happening the next day and Mike wanted to be sure we could drive to an area of totality. Good thing we did, it continued to run and eventually left a large crevasse beside the old rusting, collapsing culvert still there…filling it back in wasn’t an option as the water was just taking everything with it. This is where you kick yourself in the butt for not checking to see if the beavers have been filling your culvert with large sticks, grass and mud….
Good thing we parked the truck on the other side of the culvert. I was feeling slightly recovered from my flu/cough when we left for the barn in Plum Hollow to sit and watch the eclipse with our friend Trevor, and his daughter Molly and Jennifer, and of course the horses, donkeys and cats there. Sadly, the clouds rolled in before totality but we did get to experience everything getting quite dark. Dusty the paint of course wanted in, it must be dinnertime he said standing at the gate! I was sad for Mike as he was really looking forward to the totality part, asi es la vida. It was still very cool, it got dark and cold and the light was weird and wonderful. Then it got light again! We should have, could have driven farther east to where it was clear but to be honest, it was the most I could do just getting to the barn! And then at least all the hype would be over, the fear, “You’ll burn your eyes out!” the cries coming from the scared and uninformed. Now we just have to put up with all the stupid AI photos making the rounds. Apparently critical thinking has bypassed a large segment of the population….humans:( very very sad mammals. Or maybe staring at those tiny little phone screens is what is causing eye and brain damage…hahahahaha! It’s an eclipse, not the apocalypse! 😉 My congratulations to all the wonderful photographers that did make amazing captures of totality and the before and afters!
On the plus side, while we waited for the eclipse, Mike called our friends who have an excavating/gravel/road business, Phillip, and he agreed to come out later in the afternoon to look at the washed away culvert area to see what we could do. We actually met him on our way back in and decided on a plan of action for the next day, to be able to get across and not walk home each day from the swamp. Thanks to all those who offered to bring us food, or wine…hahahahaha! I would have taken the wine;) but we were well stocked up anticipating the culvert washout! Ten years in Mexico trained us well:)
On the plus side, with nothing to do but bust beaver dams in the morning I could sit and watch the wildlife passing through. Our resident fox has been stopping by the compost pile late in the day, Groot growls at her through the window so we know when she is there! and the young buck, I told him to stay away from the lilacs…
And there was a wonderful morning for bathrobe photography, chilly, -11° towards the end of March, but it makes your run down the steps and back up again in record time! There was ICE forming again! NOOOOO!!!!
Spring…an argument between Winter and Summer. What, no bird shots? Stay tuned, the snowbirds are starting to return. Saludos amigos! We’ll play catch up in the next week!
