Floodier and Floodier

"And the rain rain rain came down down down and the creek rose up up upper!" Richland Creek has aspirations to riverdom this week as the Falmouth area weathered a weekend of nearly nonstop rain. (That's Richland Creek that Charlie is standing in, in the photo at the beginning of the post below this one.) I confess, we Pearsons found it quite exciting to watch the creeks burst free of their confines and the Licking River swell over its banks. We have been driving all over the place for days checking the water levels from various bridges and taking an absurd number of pictures. There's a sense of guilt tinging my excitement, though. I know there will be houses that take damage before the river crests. I've driven right by two of them, and yet now can I not marvel at the power evident in creation?

Dar Williams, a folk singer who, as far as I know has no religious inclinations whatsoever, recognizes the beauty of the creation even if she doesn't recognize the Creator. "The beauty of the rain," she says, "is how it falls how it falls how it falls."

In 1997, the Licking River reached 51.8 feet and filled the bowl that is Falmouth. Today at noon, the river was about 32.5 feet, only a foot higher than it had been at 7 a.m., and not looking likely to hit the 38 foot prediction. Still, the rising waters made it to 4+ feet over the end of Mark Haley Road, and Richland Creek got to be a mighty rapids for a little while. The power of the rain is how it falls as well.

Licking River viewed from the McKinneysburg bridge.

That is the pylon of the old bridge which was (I think) washed out in the '97 flood.

Same pylon, this morning, May 3, 2010.

One interesting result of so much rain has been an influx of critter spottings. Several spottings might not have anything to do with the weather, because I've been seeing Orioles left and right. The ones I've seen could've been any of the ones on that page. Zowie, they're orange, and way too fast for me to be able to slam on the brakes and photograph.

This little moth came to spend the night in my house. She was so pretty I did my level best not to let her burn herself to death in my halogen lamp. She's a Virgin Tiger Moth. Personally, I think that's nobody's business but her own, but entomologists don't play by the same rules as the rest of us.

During the rain, I think I was within about five feet of a Diamondback Water Snake or a Northern Water Snake. I can't be sure. I didn't get a photo of him because he saw me and threw himself into the raging waters of the swollen creek. I am sure that it wasn't a Cottonmouth because it didn't bite me. Yikes! What did try to bite me was this little guy who was crossing the road from pond to pond after the rain. The kids and I were on our way to the babysitter's house for my Monday evening shift at the library when I saw this guy in the road. I slammed on the breaks and backed up, proving once again that I will do any insane thing to get pictures of nature. Charlie wanted to pick the cute turtle up, but I told him, "Not a good idea," then proved it by holding my shoe in front of the cute turtle's face. The cute snapping turtle tried to take a tidy chunk out of it.
And what blog from me would be complete without a couple of pictures of flowers? These certainly seemed to like the rain:

Star-of-Bethlehem

My Columbines

Heh heh heh-- this is called Dame's Rocket! Happy Spring!