Down Mulberry Lane

A few flood pictures from our view...

I thought I would share a few pictures taken from our yard.  Most of them focus on the creek that runs through about a 1/2 - 3/4 mile from us.  This creek is normally not overly visible from our place.  The tall grass usually covers it and it is normally about 5-8 feet across and ankle to about 3 foot deep in the small pooling curves. 

As for the flood measurements... I am unsure of how deep it got.  I do know that it covered about 1/4 mile across at least.  A bit more in some areas.  This is one of the creeks that eventually leads to a river that runs to the town south of us.  The town that I mentioned had lost water because the flooding flooded the water treatment station and put out the generators.  At the end, I will post a link to our local newspaper and you can see pictures of the flooding in north Iowa.  My aunt sent me some pictures of flooding damage in her area as well (she is in eastern Iowa... broken roads from the dirt underneat being swept away)... Crazy... water can do such amazing things! 

This is our back pasture.  The ground was saturated like this for days.  The standing water in the field behind the fence belongs to our neighbor.  You can see water in another field near the top of the photo.

This is a small leak in the basement.  Just fun to catch the drip coming out of the wall.  It was less than a half inch deep around this and it ran towards the drain, so no real big mess. 

This was off our porch.  This is the day before we left on vacation. You can see the water up around our chicken barn.  The feed bin on it's side was like that... so it wasn't damaged.  Dh just hasn't gotten it set up yet. There is no creek in this photo... this is all field and yard that is filled with water. 

The road we live on is about half way down in the picture.  You can barely see the gravel road through the grass.  The water you can see rushing about 1/3rd the way down the picture is in a field.  This is a field that we actually used to cut hay in a couple years ago, until dh decided to start buying hay.  The fence in the bottom of the picture is our paddocks for the sheep.

This is the same position, just down a bit.  I tried to take them in succession.  This is just to the right of the above picture. 

Here the gravel road is about 2/3 down in the picture.  Cows graze where this flooding is normally.  The farm pictured is a mile away and they raise cattle. 

This was taken near our apple trees from our yard.  Poor picture, but a wider view to see how extensive the flooding was.

This one shows how wet and soggy our garden was for days and days.  Sometimes more water than this was in it.  I couldn't walk in it at all.  It was just sinking mud.  My garden looks nothing like this, now.  It is nearly all green with 6 inches of grass in it... looks like the pasture.  The rain sure helped the grass to grow and it is keeping me busy trying to find the plants of veggies.  Our land ends about half way down in the middle of the picture.

Hail pictures from the day before we left on vacation. Some as large as golf balls... this was about 20 minutes after the hail... so some melting had occured. 

I think this was in my flower garden.  UGH! 

This is paige collecting hail in a canning jar.  Yes she has a piece in her mouth!  She thought this was great and collected about 4 jars full of hail.  She loves ice! 

Hail brought the leaves down. 

Hail hit the rhubarb.  Only 3 bunches were ok, being sheltered from the hail.  I have about 5 bunches that look like this.  Now the holes are all crusted up and brown... looks pretty bad. 

I'm out of space.  I'll likely pare down some pictures in a few days.  But enjoy for a short time!  Look at the Globe Gazette site for more flood pictures of north iowa. 

Warmly, ~Melissa