Spring Tides

It was a damp and stormy day today. The humidity was so high I felt like I was breathing underwater this afternoon, a fair sign that storms were on the way. The weather alert radio in my office kept sounding off about "severe thunderstorms" (part of my job is keeping track of weather in case it might affect our services) and such things.

When I left at 5:30 pm, I drove right into the teeth of one or several storms--it was hard to tell because the rain would slack off briefly only to come on strong again. The trip was slow, 40 mph on the interstate because the water could not run off fast enough.

But by the time I reached Joe's Run, the sun was shining and the sky was crystal blue. The only sign of the storms was the water--which was everywhere.

This little creek, known as Poverty Fork, was all over the bottomland as it back up trying to feed into Joe's Run.
Further up the road, the creek had come out of its banks, but then subsided, leaving the road covered in water that was slowly finding its way back to the creek. A small run coming down the hill to the right fed the pond in the road, so it might be a few hours before it settles down.

Through the water and looking back--to see neighbors fording through it too. It was actually not very deep, perhaps 6 inches or so. I crossed through several places like this. On our road, it's not so dangerous to cross the flooded sections because it's usually where the creek came up and went back down, and the ditches are still overflowing. There are places I would not drive through if the water was over the road, but generally there's no problem with most of the areas that tend to flood. We tend to get minor flooding like this most years, sometimes several times a year, because of the steepness of the hills and the ferocity of the storms that hit us first after crossing the flatlands of Ohio.

Then, up the hill we call Kenneth Parrish hill. The runoff was too much for the ditches so the water found its own path downhill.

At home, the sudden sunlight on the damp logs of the house created steam in the nearly tropical air.

But my goodness, do the gardens seem to love it! The green is almost painfully beautiful this evening.

And maybe tomorrow the rains will hold off for our grandson Jared's graduation. That would be nice. Very nice. And dry. Dry is good, after such a wet week.