Coop's Corner: River Still High

Monday, May 26, 2014

River Still High

I casually asked a couple of old timers yesterday if this wasn't some kind of record or maybe records that the Mississippi has been 1) high for this extended period of time or 2) that the Spring high water has been present this deep into May. Both believed the former was the more likely possibility.

I was up early and out in the garage, my goal to be down in Alma for breakfast at 6:30 before they got busy at Pier4. Easily away in time, the Ascot and I made the 45 minute trip with a few minutes to spare. A beautiful early summer day early and on a motorcycle, just about my favorite way to spend time and yesterday's early is my favorite time to be outside.

My ride was a short one, breakfast only since there are just too many things I've been neglecting (and intend to neglect through the next weeks) around home. I did stop in Wabasha, back on my side of the river to check out the boat landing and that's where I had a chance to reference river history, my memory and his, with old timer #2.

The ramp is squarely beyond the lamp post. I see that the electrical tower in the background appears to be vertical.....the Warning sign and lamp post may be succumbing to the constant river currents?? :)

Old timer #2 after putting his boat in. I wasn't fast enough to capture his entire 100 meter drive from the 'center' of the bay back to dry land. He's at the 50 meter line here......

12 comments:

DebMay 26, 2014 at 9:49 AM
Wow! Lots of high water in your area. So what did you have for breakfast? :=)
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Coop a.k.a. CoopdwayMay 26, 2014 at 9:54 AM
Deb, the river started going down and then recent heavy rains sent it right back up again.

Since I was quite early for a Sunday, things were quiet at the diner when I arrived. Cook and C.O.O. Paul chatted for awhile, while Jess brought me my coffee and then asked on his way to the kitchen if I wanted my usual, a #4. I threw caution to the wind yesterday and had the day's Special.

Oh, and brought home some smoked salmon from their smokehouse as well. :)
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TrobairitzMay 26, 2014 at 10:38 AM
It looks like a nice morning for a ride. Not good that the water has stayed that high for so long, but I guess it could be worse. Are there huge puddles in the fields?

A lot of times when our water is high there isn't any local flooding, but the grass fields look like small lakes.
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RichardMMay 26, 2014 at 12:01 PM
Usually we would get high water due to some blockage downstream. In your case is it because the river just can't move enough water?
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UnknownMay 26, 2014 at 12:03 PM
Coop:

can't say we have any flooding here. The Fraser River is our main river but it is Tidal and goes up and down with the tides and lately our ocean shores seems quite low and last week we had lots of sandy beach exposed because the tide was out so far.

It may be a different story as you go inland but this time of year we are surrounded by snow everywhere except our Lower Mainland and the Fraser Valley so those of us in the City don't venture far from home

bob
Riding the Wet Coast
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SonjaMMay 28, 2014 at 12:22 PM
Flooding... we've seen some too lately due to heavy rain falls but so far this is nothing against what you have to bear. Looks like a boat would be the best option to get around...
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Coop a.k.a. CoopdwayMay 28, 2014 at 9:19 PM
Most of us are pretty well off Sonja, the river stubbornly remains high only because of the latent volume and casual run to the Gulf of Mexico. It just doesn't seem to be in that big of hurry to get back to end of May levels.
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David MasseMay 30, 2014 at 2:37 PM
Doug, this post reminds me of one of my brother-in-law's stock expressions. He has lived in Florida since the mid 70's and was fascinated by the new expressions he encountered that he hadn't encountered in Montreal, such as "I'll be there, God willin', the crick don't rise".
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Others say....

"it was auspicious to approach any situation from a deferential, inquisitive place. Conceding that there is much to learn is the best blueprint for discovering something new." ----B. Fuller

The Man straightened stiffly above the block of salt fixed to the stake and looked at the young cattle ringed about him. The pasture was holding out well and the stock was looking good. This bunch would be ready to sell in another month, maybe sooner if the market was right.

A stir among the cattle down near the river brought him round to face the swinging bridge he'd built years before. Someone was coming toward him from the bridge. Someone in breeches, but it didn't look like a man, somehow. What was a woman doing in his pasture this time of night?

He bent over the salt again; maybe if he paid her no heed she'd go on past and let him mind his own business. He heard her footsteps come nearer and stop. "Good evening," she said.

Her voice was smooth with book learning but friendlier than most, and somehow almost shy. When he made no answer she went on, "I've been sitting on your swinging bridge....I thought I'd like to say thank-you...." Her voice stumbled a little, then she tried once more.

"You are Mr. ____". His name sounded strange in her voice, but she went on to tell her own.

"That's what they've called me the last sixty-eight years," he said, looking past her face to the hills fast darkening under a single star. "I reckon the woods are free for those that like to walk there."

The unfamiliar voice laughed a little. "That's what Emerson said: the grove belongs to the man who walks in it with an open heart....On that basis I guess I've owned part of your woods for a good many years.....". She made a final effort. "I've always wanted to thank you....."

Something deeply hidden stirred in him. "There's a stump up there, in the notch of the woods", he said slowly, "that before the timber grew so tall you could stand on it and see all over this country."

He kept still a minute, remembering, then, "I used to stand up there an' look at things, an' wonder how they come to be like they was, an' how the hills was created, an' all the things in Nature.... I told my wife I guessed all the religion I ever had I got standin' on that old stump, a-wonderin'..." He turned his face away from her.

She helped him out. "I know about that, a little. This afternoon I saw......." Her account of a thing she had really taken time to look at eased him, and he answered with telling of the badger den at the foot of the swinging bridge.

When she had gone, he turned to watch her. After a moment she stood clear and unmoving against the sky. You could hear the sounds of the river where she stood. She was one that could stand still long enough, he thought, really to hear what a body was saying, or a river.

Then she walked down the farther side of the slope and was gone. ------Margaret Snyder from A Chosen Valley

Fall was the end of harvest, end of the growing season, a burst of color and sun-warmth before killing frost turned the land gray and cold. Fall was a moody time, full of both life and death, a time when we were reminded of the power outside of us, reminded that the seasons happen to us. We do not invite the change to come.-------Ben Logan, from The Land Remembers

When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold onto them. They are the lifeboats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely elusive. So the question becomes or should have been all along, what would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What lifeboat would you grab onto? What secret would you tell? What band would you see? What person would you declare your love to? What wish would you fulfill? What exotic locale would you fly to for coffee? What book would you write? ------- Ben Tyler

We were also cautioned about journeying far from home. As an example of the dangers, the town had a badly crippled lady named Lucy, who as a girl had traveled to New York City. As she traveled along a sidewalk, sightseeing, she was struck by the outstretched hand of a suicide who had leapt from high above. Her spine had been shattered and for the rest of her life, she was to walk bent forward at the waist, tapping the sidewalk with two black canes. Whenever the subject of travel to a big city was raised, someone would say, "Just remember what happened to Miss Tripp." ---- Ted Kooser, from Local Wonders

"Steamboats are like wedding cakes without the complications...." ----Mark Twain

"It's not about having lots of money, it's about having lots of options......." -----Chris Rock

As the very proud father of three former ponytail wearers, hopefully I can get away with this....."For the past few years it's been fashionable for young women to wear ball caps and to snap the strap on the back under their ponytails. I like the looks of that, their shiny ponytails jauntily swinging, but it's hard not to think of the rear ends of horses. There's a piece of harness called the crupper that goes just under a horse's tail to keep its nose down. If the horse lifts its head to look for a way out of whatever predicament it's in, the crupper tightens and hurts the horse. But it's foolish for parents to think that a ball cap might keep a young woman from running away. Anybody can see they're made for running." ------Ted Kooser, Local Wonders

"I tell the guy's girlfriend that the only difference between the book's main character Phaedrus and myself is that I am neither brilliant, tortured or insane, she looks at my bike and there is an uncomfortable silence." --------ahendepe (a.k.a. Vermin)