Debris, decay, deliciousness

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

The pad for the new chicken coop, uphill from the meadow

Chickens came within a few feet of being washed away

Debris in trees all over the place

Tree left behind by flood

Where did that rock come from? Elsewhere...

A chunk of barrel?

Sand bar left behind by Lake Hogue

 

That's why they call it a FLASH flood

Remind me again why we live in the sticks, I ask, but of course I know the answer: birds and bees and butterflies, summer fireflies and spring ephemerals, creek walks with the grandkids, quiet nights, lovely days, space for a great big garden, all wonderful things until the rain falls and the creek swells and the garden is under water.

It was barely raining when I left campus yesterday but I had to pull over twice on the drive home because the rain was so heavy I couldn't see the road. It finally let up a bit and I followed a line of cars moving slowly up the highway past loose debris. A tree had fallen and pulled down a power line across half of the road, forcing us to drive perilously close to a drainage ditch swollen with fast-moving water. But I made it home! The creek was rising but didn't look dangerous.

There's a reason they call it a flash flood: it happened so quickly that no one had time to prepare. The first time I walked down toward the bridge, the driveway on this side was still walkable and the bridge and road were visible above the creek; by the time I'd walked back up the hill, the driveway was under water. Flood waters crossed the meadow but looked like they'd stay away from the edge of the garden, but the resident green thumb moved loose garden chairs and other floatables uphill just in case. 

From our side of the bridge I could just barely see my neighbor's blue pickup truck parked next to the garden shed he'd been building by hand for some months. Twenty minutes later, our bridge and garden and road were under water and the neighbor's truck and shed were just gone. The entire meadow had become a rushing mass of water louder than Niagara, and it sounded like the bridge was being hit repeatedly with battering rams.

The floodwaters came within a few feet of the chicken run, which distressed me immensely, but the chickens reveled in the bounty of bugs trying to flee the rising waters. Special delivery! 

Within an hour the water had receded, and this morning the creek is well within normal bounds. The bridge is covered with debris and we'll need a load of gravel before the driveway is passable again, and the garden is a big mud pit, with corn stalks bowing to the ground in a downstream direction.

The last big flood we suffered (click here) washed away our driveway and garden shed, so I'm glad we didn't lose more. Elsewhere in the county, a tornado struck down and buildings and trees suffered massive damage. We got off easily this time--nothing that a few tons of gravel can't fix. 

Except the garden. I went to look at it this morning and found mud where tomato plants ought to be. The garden might spring back, insists the resident green thumb. Good thing I married an optimist--otherwise I might find this situation a tad discouraging.

Just a little water in the meadow. Nothing to be concerned about.

The bridge sounds like it's being battered, but it's above water....for now.

You can just barely see the neighbor's truck behind the trees.

Wait, I was just walking down there and now it's under water....

Garden stuff on higher ground

That little row of plants is at the edge of the garden.

The electric fence around the garden is all that's visible

Lake Hogue

Wait, where did the bridge go?

Standing wave. You wouldn't believe how loud the water is.

Nope, still no bridge.

Looking toward the road, which is under water.

Where the neighbor's truck and shed used to be.

Chickens find higher ground

The garden....what's left of it.

Corn, bowing.

Flood debris with creek in the background.

The mud on the driveway is so slick I didn't dare walk on it.

Pumpkins, peppers, pawpaws, pizzazz

After a weekend with the grandkids, I arrived home yesterday to find my kitchen and dining room overflowing with produce from the fall harvest. I don't even like spaghetti squash but they're stacked on the dining table alongside a pile of fragrant pawpaws that seems undiminished by the dozens I took north with me. The kitchen counters are covered with tomatoes of many sizes and colors while the fridge is full of okra, habaneros, and red bell peppers. The resident gardener wonders whether I can throw together a batch of stuffed peppers sometime this week, but stuffed peppers are not so much thrown together as painstakingly assembled over a series of hours. So maybe--but not today.

On Friday before I left my husband put a great pumpkin into the back of my car, a pumpkin so big he had to use the tractor to carry it up from the garden, and then he wedged it in with pillows to make sure it didn't roll around. All well and good, but I wasn't able to take the tractor with me to the grandkids' house and I certainly wasn't planning to try to pick up that pumpkin myself. It took a group effort and a garden cart to move the orange behemoth. 

It's been a bizarre garden year: many early crops did nothing--we had very few zucchinis or broccoli and a handful of beans--but later crops are going bananas. I hope we can find someone interested in spaghetti squash because I certainly don't intend to cook all eight million of them. I've been bringing containers of tiny tomatoes to campus to share with colleagues, but I'm not hauling in a giant pumpkin. And all those habanero peppers? If my husband eats them all, we'll never be able to kiss again. 

But I'm not complaining. As long as we have sweet corn in the freezer and fresh tomatoes boiling down into paste in the kitchen, I'm ready for a tasty winter. 

 

Down the garden path

Rather than moping over my ruined zoom lens, I'm forcing myself to learn how to take better photos on my phone. It's not as satisfying as my beloved Nikon but I'm enjoying messing around with it and trying to like the results. 

This morning, for instance, I hobbled down the hill on my bum knee to visit the chickens (and two guineas) and see what's still growing in the garden. Last weekend we processed dozens of ears of sweet corn for the freezer, but this week the sweet corn patch is pretty much done. The okra suddenly shot up to six feet tall and started making pods, so today we'll fry up a mess of okra for lunch. It looks like we'll have tons more tomatoes and tomatillos and hot peppers, plus three big watermelons and massive pumpkins. Sunflowers, spaghetti squash, a few lingering cucumbers, lovely red beet greens mingling with swiss chard...all very promising, and very pretty.

It's been an odd year for gardening, with the cool, wet spring hampering many early crops--even the zucchini has been disappointing. But this late-summer burst of growth will keep us busy and happy for weeks to come. Though I'm not sure what we'll do with those giant pumpkins. How many pumpkin pies can the two of us eat?