What's the oddest bit of flotsam our creek has ever delivered to our property? Floods have brought us chunks of brick, glass, dishes, clay, and coal, plus trees (whole and partial), zip ties, drainage tile, a child's car seat, broken toys, a car's gas tank and an LP gas tank, plastic 50-gallon barrels, mangled tires, and unidentifiable rusted bits of appliances and farm equipment. This is the first time, though, that a flood has delivered a saddle.
Someone must be missing it, right? I think you'd notice if your saddle got snatched away by a raging torrent. I thought about driving upstream to see which neighbors still keep horses, but the creek forks and stretches far into the next county so that's a lot of ground to cover. The neighbor who constructs floating docks came by and collected the plastic barrels and the LP gas tank, so now the saddle is propped up beside the road in hopes that someone will recognize it and take it home.
The flood giveth and the flood taketh away. Our downstream neighbor pulled his mangled pickup truck and tractor out of the creek, but his garden shed is probably in bits at the bottom of the Muskingum. My husband spent untold hours scooping up gravel that had washed from our driveway into the neighbor's field, and two truckloads of gravel and lots of labor made the driveway usable again. To look around, you'd never know that we were living in the middle of a disaster area, unless you took a look at our garden.
I keep telling myself that we've fulfilled our quota of disasters for the year, but the minute I say that, the sky will open and drop--what? We've suffered hail, flood, mold, cancer, marauding raccoons, and intransigent colleagues--what next? If we're suddenly called on to ride herd on another horde of marauding disasters, at least we've got a saddle ready.
Coal bits, clay chips, plastic, glass,
tires, barrels, zip ties;
the flood destroys but brings new toys,
disaster's sodden flip side.
Best I can do after the week we've had. Anyone else feeling creative about disaster?
Saddke up! 
Big chunk of tree. 
Nice catch! 
Debris under the bridge, and above.
No comments:
Post a Comment