Spring

Spring comes to the Monadnock region not slowly and gently, but more like a bowling ball dropped on a foot. Suddenly it is just irrevocably upon us.

Hmmmm, if I hadn't lost my wildflower book I could tell you what these are...probably some non-native, invasive species. They are pretty though.

My new job, while fabulous in most ways, has been wearing me out a bit lately. Add to that a business trip to CA a few weeks back, the Bride's upcoming opening and its attendant stresses, and the expansion of the house, and, well, Spring *really* snuck up on me this time.

I should really know what this flower is. I don't however.

So one day, after noticing that the tree all had leaves, that I was covered with black fly bites, and that for some reason it was 97 degrees in my office, I decided to stop and smell the flowers. The ones without bees in them anyway.

Bumbling

Ferns coming up by the cabin

The sledding hill. Sans snow.

I think most people consider this a weed and buy stuff to kill it. Our lawn is full of them. I just mow them along with the grass when they get too tall. A chemical solution seems excessive.

Cute rodent. Less cute when he lives in your attic.

Crab Apple blossoms.

The Bride ambles down our busy road. Sadly, the few drivers that do come blasting down it clearly should stay home and wait for DiRT to be released.

No clue what these are either.

The Really Old School. This is 'downtown' in my town. Seriously.

Not much else to say this post. 1 pic == 1k words and all.

Hope your spring is as nice as ours. Unless you live in the Southern hemisphere. Then you are SOL. And if you are in one of those places that has no seasons (San Francisco) then I pity you :-P

ptb

Flood

As my last post mentioned we got some late season snow here in Southwestern NH. I thought that was the last of it, but we got hit again shortly after that. And then on April 16th it started to rain. Hard. For almost two days.

We live relatively high on a mountain slope. Being so close to the source of the various nameless(?) streams in our area, we never see really high water. Well, almost never.

Hill Road washes away...

The ground was already saturated from melting snow and some warm days had melted and packed the snow hard on the ground. When the rain came, the ground couldn't absorb anything and impromptu brooks formed in new places, existing brooks upgraded to creeks, and existing creeks temporarily swelled to raging rivers.

In many places drainage pipes under the roads became overwhelmed and streams started flowing right over the top of the road. The road we live on is dirt and just washed away.

The cabin eventually had water in it, but it didn't float away and no real harm was done.

Fortunately our house sits high on a hill and was unaffected by the floods, but the dam in the back yard the creates our pond almost didn't make it. A spillway diverts high water around the dam so the water doesn't flow over it and wash away the earthen portions of the dam. But the spillway reached it's limit and the damn was only spared by a slackening in the rain. Being so close to the source, once the rain stops the water drops almost immediately (unlike those down river).

The spillway does its thing and the dam holds.

In the end the damage locally was limited mostly to roads. I don't know anyone personally who suffered severe property damage, though certainly there must be some, and many a basement was badly flooded. Rt 101 in Wilton, a major East West route in these parts remains closed as I write this. Rt 45 was also out for a week, a new bridge put in place last summer was destroyed there. Our own road was bulldozed back into passable shape, and while it still awaits a final grading, is useable again.

ptb