Pheasant Branch Conservatory, Spring 2019

In the last post I mentioned that we finally thawed. Along with that, our favorite trail finally opened up again.

Back when we were in Oregon last summer, I got a text. I remember exactly where I was, in the kitchen our first morning at the A-frame; I was packing a picnic lunch for us to take on a drive and scurrying around, not thinking too much of the messages coming in on my phone. First a text from my dad, asking if we were okay, then a text from our cat sitter (K), saying our house was fine, just some water in the basement, and she was hoping to make it back to her own home soon. I just kept packing up our lunch, answered them breezily, and didn’t think a whole lot of it.

Welp, turns out: the flooding was pretty catastrophic. It took K over an hour to get out of our neighborhood, a very hairy adventure where her car’s engine was flooded and died and she barely made it to the dealer down the street to abandon her car and call her fiance to find her (and she dealt with car problems for several weeks, LORDY). Turns out, most of our dear city was underwater.

We were very, very lucky: our home is at the tippy top of a hill, so we just had minor water in our basement. Most were not that lucky, however, including the walking trail near our home. We’ve walked it a million times, on weekends and after work/school and to just get out of the house for a spell. But during that flood, it was a crazy overflowing river. Bridges were washed away, treelines for several meters wiped out, and the walkways lost.

Here’s a picture from a few years ago, same time of year as now.

And this one from the same time of year, with the trail finally back open nine months after the flood.

I bet 60-80% of the trees are gone or damaged beyond recovery. Several meters deep are gone or damaged. You could never see this business through the trees before.

Piles of sand and silt deposited from the flood.

Here (below) a major portion of the ground collapsed. The landscape on this trail is completely changed.

Ugh. Anyway. Climate change is terrible. That’s all I can put together for now, friends. Love y’all.