For days the media was warning about the arrival of hurricane Isabel on the US East Coast. The predicted path looked to go right over us, so we spent several days making preparations. Here you see our sheep (in white by the shed) and pigs (in reddish brown to the right) that we moved to high ground yesterday.
Preparations included hauling this stockpile of locust fence posts, plus four truckloads of split firewood, up from the Meadow Paddock.
Sure enough, the remnants of Isabel pounded us all night last night. This morning we awoke to gray, but clearing, skies. Here’s a hawk surveying the aftermath.
By 8:30 a.m. the river was about a foot below the bank on our side of the river, and rising. This was the view down Turtle Trail, or should I say Turtle Trail Isthmus. That’s the river to the right, the spring run to the left, and their conjoinance straight ahead. This will be under several feet of water soon.
By 9:30 a.m. a small stretch of road near our sandstone cliffs was flooded — a first since we moved here in ’98.
The view from the road; you can see the flooding Meadow Paddock out behind the house.
Here’s where we had the pigs up until yesterday morning. This water is 4 – 8 feet deep.
Nothing else to do but sit on the veranda and watch the river rise. Here it is at it’s crest at 1:30 p.m.
The sheep and pigs spent the day lounging and grazing above their flooded former digs. It is 6:00 p.m. as I write this and the river is receding, slowly but surely.
