Santa Rosa Creek

We had quite a heavy downpour last night along with what sounded like high winds although it was too dark, and I was too warm in my bed, to get up and look. I laid there listening to things going bump and told myself that there was no reason to fear fire in the pouring rain, for I think the response to high wind must be some kind of PTSD.

The creek was roaring this morning. We could hear it the moment we opened the door. I forgot to look in the swale between our house and the fortress house next door but I'm sure it was running fairly high also. It generally doesn't have any water in it but does it's job very efficiently, if in a very low tech way, of draining the water from further up the hill down to the creek.

When the rain dwindled off in late morning and patches of blue began to appear in the sky we decided to walk down to the bridge where I often take pictures of the creek in all of its various moods. The level had already dropped quite a bit as the island, actually a peninsula,  in the middle of this image was covered at some point. The log jam on the left is growing and another one is developing on the other side a little further back, but they are more like bridges and quite a lot of water is running underneath them. 

A lot of the trees along the bank were damaged in the fire and are losing their bark. At some point they will probably fall also, but a lot of the timber in the log jams has been cut, either by the fellow who is rebuilding his house further up the creek on the left hand side or by the caretaker who maintains the property on the right. Nobody seems to know who is responsible for clearing the creek of fallen timber and things that wash down from further upstream, but it is a massive job, and one that no single property owner should be expected to take on. Those rules were made before climate change, firestorms and heavy rainfalls. For now, nobody seems to be doing anything.

I made a batch of cardamon cookies when we got back.  Spike, who has recovered from his sedated day and seems to be back to his normal, cheerful self stood by in case anything dropped to the floor. One or two things might have, but I didn't notice and they disappeared quickly.

Our neighbors are coming for dinner and I'm going to give her the Klee inspired quilt....