Well, nothing like a little rain to wash away your blues, the pollen and the occasional home or two. Last week was storm week here. Lots of rain. Lots and lots of rain. And then some more rain with that occasional tornado watch/warning. We survived, our LAN modem didn't, but other than the river through the front yard we get every time it rains hard, we survived. There's nothing like the sound of a torrential storm swollen creek (now an honest to god small river) 100 feet away out your back window to lull you to sleep at night.
The worst part of a storm system passing through isn't always the storm. At least not when you live in mountains with lots of lakes, creeks, rivers and low bridges over little 2 lane highways out in the middle of nowhere. The worst part is the run off that accumulates in the already swollen lakes, rivers and creeks. That actually occures a day or two after the rains.
So we all had our personal war stories about how high such and such creek was and how it was overflowing it's banks and "man, was I ever afraid to cross such and such bridge the water was so high, blah, blah, blah". Truthfully, I had a job not too far from the house here Sunday morning that scared the bejeezus out of me. These folks lived at one if the lowest points down river from the dam, not more than 200 feet from the river. I kept eyeballing that river as I worked, I was honestly nervous, I have never seen it so high, at least not in a really long time.
The last time I saw it that high was when all those people lost all their homes and stuff when the levies broke on the Mississippi up in Iowa and Missouri way back in the mid 90's. Back during that bad ass storm system that passed through these parts, they wouldn't release water from our dam because down stream, the White could not hold any more water because the Arkansas couldn't hold any more water because the Mississippi couldn't hold any more water (I can't imagine the Gulf of Mexico not being able to hold any more water). Now that was scary. Almost scary enough to keep me from buying land out near the White below the dam. Almost, but not quite scary enough.
So this evening, we decided to head down to Sue's favorite fishing hole to see where the water was. To say the least, it was high. They are generating their asses off right now at the dam. I think they have it open full bore. Between the run off and opening the dam's bottom release, the river would be one hell of a rapids if there were huge boulders in it. They actually released the top flood gates Saturday cause the lake water was almost at flood capacity. When you live down stream from a lake and dam like I do, this is when you worry a little about flooding in your neighborhood.
It's supposed to rain again in the next day or two. The water here is still high (although our little creek is down to it's normal little trickle and the pond is slowly receding back again). The lakes, rivers and creeks however are still very, very high.
Well, that's the weather report from the Ozarks for today. Btw, it was a stunningly beautiful spring day today. Would have been perfect for fishing is it wasn't for the waters being impossible to fish in. Which sucks because, well, the White Bass are running and I was really looking forward to catching a passle this year. Course, I don't have the room in my freezer, so I guess this is a good thing.
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