A River Ran Through It

Behold! Water!

This actually happened a week ago, but it wasn't until today that I got around to writing about it. We had a rather intense thunderstorm last Saturday morning. We got quite a bit of rain out of it, but there was a good deal more rain north of us. Our part of the rain didn't produce any runoff to speak of, but about an hour after it stopped raining, the general north-to-south drainage pattern saw to it that all the rain that came down north of us then proceeded down our wash. At first it was a flow of brown water about a foot wide. Then two feet wide. Then many feet wide. In the photograph above, the water is about 25 feet wide and about four feet deep at its deepest point, right next to the largish green tree. That's a lot of water around these parts.

But it wasn't so bad. The wash is wide and deep and easily accomodated the flow, though with what I imagine hydrologists would call "significant recontouring of the flood plain". Nothing was damaged, other than my self-esteem for appearing in this photograph, and the flow did a pretty good job of tearing out and flushing away the dead weeds and half-dead brush that had been clogging the wash.

I'm the one on the left, shoveling dirt onto an impromptu levee to keep the water from overtopping a low spot on the bank and proceeding down a secondary channel that is barely visible just below my soggy feet.

Man do I ever look seedy in that photograph!