After neverending rain and repeated flooding, our lower meadow is finally drying out--which is good news because the new chicken coop is arriving next week and I wouldn't want the truck that hauls it to be mired in the mud.
So we took a walk around this morning, poking around the edges to see what the floods left behind. The garden was flattened, of course, but the okra patch survived the inundation and continues to feed us. We eat fried okra several times a week, and yesterday I arrived home hungry to find that the resident gardener had followed online instructions to fix a massive bubbling pot of gumbo that warmed me right down to my toes.
Fig trees that were under four feet of water have sent forth a tiny crop--two little green figs--while banana trees loom overhead looking lovely but producing no crop at all. (Hardy banana trees can weather our winters, but the growing season is too short to allow them to fruit.)
Flooding left debris hanging from trees all around the meadow, mostly bits of straw from the neighbors' fields. Some debris is stuck on limbs higher than I can reach and some higher than my husband can reach. I asked him how high the highest deposit was and he said, "Taller than a basketball hoop." Our creek can dunk!
The floods deposited patches and bars of thick silt on garden and meadow, wore away high banks along one part of the creek and left a layer of gravel over another. A rock the size of a bathtub got plopped down right in the middle of the creek, a visitor from Elsewhere.
I crave stability but stand in awe of a landscape in motion, the borders of my world shifting as the water comes and goes. The flooding couldn't stop the fig and okra from growing and it won't stop us from enjoying the beauty in a changing world.
The okra patch stands tall in the flattened garden 
Fig 
Banana tree looming above the figs 
The gardener under his fig and bananas
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| The pad for the new chicken coop, uphill from the meadow |
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| Chickens came within a few feet of being washed away |
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| Debris in trees all over the place |
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| Tree left behind by flood |
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| Where did that rock come from? Elsewhere... |
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| A chunk of barrel? |
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| Sand bar left behind by Lake Hogue |
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