When it floods...

…go fishing. No need for a boat launch ramp or a dock because if you look closely, you will see that his legs are in the water…

When rain totals are given for Santa Rosa, they never bear any resemblance to what happens in our area. because they are taken at the airport which is in the flatlands. At Spring Lake this morning it soon became evident that here at the feet of the mountains, we got considerably more than one inch of rain. The lake was full and had flooded in many places putting the path, and even the boat dock completely under water.

I was reminded as we picked our way through the mud, of the time when I was a small child and my parents lived in a house on Balboa Island  in Southern California, every inch of which, even then, was covered with expensive beach cottages. Many of those on the water have docks, with sailboats and small slices of sandy beach in between. 

One morning I rode my tricycle with a pail and shovel hanging from the handlebar to the beach as usual, only to find that the water had covered the beach and was all the way up to the seawall. I can still remember how terrified I was to see this total alteration in the landscape caused, I suppose, by an unusually high tide.

The sight of the muddy lake water lapping at the path and the legs of the picnic tables and lakeside benches, brought back a ghost memory of that almost primal fear I felt as a three year old  confronted with an incomprehensible transformation of my familiar landscape.