Still standing...



Where have I been? Let me explain....


When you last heard from me, things were good in the yard. Soon after...not so much. Living next to water is always risky but for most of the 12 years I'd been here, it's not been a problem. 2011 changed that. Flash flooding was a problem too often to count last year. I'd never seen it do that before and wasn't prepared for the damage to my yard, and the bottom part of my home.

Flash flooding is so much harder on my yard, compared to the BIG flood we had in Pennsylvania (as many states had all up and down the east coast last summer) thanks to Tropical Storm Lee. Flash flooding brings an incredibly forceful rush of water and tears out everything in its path. Which included my yard and plants. And it brings a lot of stuff with it. Tree branches, all sorts of debris (and too much of it man made!), small fish, frogs, small crustaceans, dead and alive. We threw back as many as we could that were still alive. I was stunned at the number of crayfish that were left on land. Hundreds! In a sense though it was good news, the stream was certainly showing signs of health if it was supporting this large number of critters!

One of the flash floods happened so fast, I didn't even realize it was happening until a neighbor knocked on my back window and told me to look outside. It was already up to the bottom of my car. Having been a volunteer fire fighter decades ago, I knew better then to walk in the rushing water. So I called 911, explained the situation as well as my concerns for a disabled neighbor. They asked if the street in front of the park was flooded which I thought odd. I told them it would definately be flooded. I heard the sirens...and unbelievably they stopped out on the street, and they closed it off and left. Luckily the water then stopped rising and my car didn't get any inside.

So next step was to track down all the bags of mulch I'd just bought. I'd already put down several bags on the yard, most of it washed away. I lost 6 bags and found most of them. Over the next days and weeks I got to working on the yard. At least it was Spring, time for renewal. I was pleasantly surprised at some of the plants that survived.

But then another flash flood. If we were getting a fast downpour of 5" I knew to be prepared, but it got to the point, so much damage was being done to the ground - that was already saturated with too much rain, even a sudden measly 3" downpour was a problem. Each flash flood seemed to get more powerful. The worst one in the Spring you see below. It left, in places, up to 2 feet of silt. That's stuff I'll never be able to get rid of. Over a foot and a half of it on my patio that I'd started shoveling at one point, almsot done when it happened yet AGAIN. 


Mother nature is amazing. Frightening, impressive, and wonderful all at once. While many plants got ripped out and washed away, some of them ended up in neighbors yards, or even under their homes, covered in mud and silt and promptly took root. I had to go around, once I wouldn't get mired in muck, dig them back up and bring them home! I think there's still one under my next door neighbors. Plants that had been potted, torn from their container. I'd find one laying about and plop it back in. It would grow again.

It became a game with the neighbors to see what they could find for each other. Landscape timbers....identifying which belonged to who as we all used different sizes. "Hey Tina, I think I have one of your timbers over here" I look and "nope that's Lettie's, I'll tell her it's here" I had to help her get a huge bench out of the stream, where it was hung up on a tree. For the 3rd or so time I had to fix my skirting, which was showing a lot of wear and tear but replacing it didn't seem practical at this point.

I felt bad for the birds afterwards, who were coming in to land at feeders...that weren't there since the pole had been knocked down. That was probably the first thing I did after any flooding was to upright the pole for them.

There had been a bird feeder hanging from the tree that was over my head. So much silt was dropped in my yard that it was then hanging at neck level.  Grass has not grown in this area since.

Here you can see the silt on the patio. It was a lot of work to shovel it all up time and again. Luckily my ex husband loaned me a wheelbarrow, after I had been hauling it all in buckets. Made it a little easier, except when I'd lose the load or get tangled up with it when I'd attempt to right it again and there I'd be, on the ground, my leg wrapped around a handle! Then I'd lay on the ground and laugh, thinking how lucky no one was around to see it. I had to dig out a lot of plants. Luckily many of them survived this.

 A lot of rock came up



Rock, wood, and broken clay pots from a neighbor upstream



This had been my blueberry bushes and the netting protecting it from the birds.
The plants survived, though no fruit.



But you know the ducks still have to eat :)



Initially I felt a little overwhelmed by the prospect of fixing this. But I finally got tired of the ugliness and set about making it right again. Working 7 nights a week added to the challenge but honestly once I decided I was doing it, I didn't hesitate. It took some time to clear out all the debris on my own. I hauled a lot of dirt and rock!



 As everything started to grow again, I found plants I thought were lost. And some plants merely moved to new spots. Some I dug up, a few I left where they landed.







I made a few changes and made some additions.



Put in some potted plants to make up for the lack of color and ease of moving if I had to. (and I would have to!)
I dug up what little grass there was in the front and put in a little herb garden.




 In the background you see all the rocks by the stream? Placed there by PennDot as they treid to save some of the bank from future floods. It was one of the few spots they could get theer equipment in. Nice bunch of guys, who also helped shovel some silt while they were waiting for trucks to arrive. In return I fried them up some home made donuts. I knew this wasn't going to help with the flooding, since something needs to be done upstream from me. But nothing will ever be done. So much building has been done, so much environmental damage that they will never spend the money to fix it. The workers had to dig up my red bud tree (asking permission first). I had to laugh, when they put it back it was in sad shape as the equipment had torn apart some of the branches. Sad looking tree but I told them not to worry about it...being a native plant it would probably survive.

Once the project was done, they did send out a tree specialist to check it out and he agreed it would survive, but he also told me it was a really poor excuse of a tree to begin with. Not surprising as the airport had them put in to make up for all the trees they ripped out a couple years ago (another story) which has contributed a lot to the bank erosion and subsequent flooding.

The workers had dug down about 9 feet removing much muck and debris, plus the small island that had formed in the middle, hoping to give the water a better free flowing path. Before the project was done, the rain came AGAIN, and brought rock and mud and totally filled in what they removed and started forming the island again, and knocked down some of those big rocks!





 I finally completed most of  this in June. Then set about building a small dirt levee along the yard. Slow work that I nearly had complete by the end of August.  But being mostly silt, knew if I didn't get something rooted in there it wouldn't hold up so I went to a nursery that only sells native plants. I find that those are what survived the best, including my precious pawpaw trees. Despite being half buried in silt, they were surviving and growing, and housing the beautiful zebra swallowtal butterfly caterpillars! . But this is what they are used to. I bought more plants, many berry bushes, too, for the birds, and planted them on the levee. Hoping to have time for them to take root and become strong enough to hold it in place. I was excited about how things were shaping up, even if I didn't get any time to actually sit outside and just enjoy the yard. I was hopeful and let my thoughts turn to the possibilities of next Spring!

Weeks later the devastating rain from Tropical Storm Lee came. I'll get back to you about that and also some of the BEST things that happened later last year.

And as a side note, I have come to the blogs and tried to keep up with everything going on with the rest of you!

Spring...or not.

An ugly day outside. Cold. Rain. Storm warnings out.  This morning when I left work there was frozen precipitation covering my car windows.  This is so not like Spring.  Or is it?  I suppose it is typical for early Spring.

those of us with Spring (planting) fever don't want to admit it.

A few pics from the past couple days. 

I thought this female was so pretty with her striped brow, despite it being a house sparrow. 

 Is it just me, or are mourning doves a bit comical?

 I believe this is Little Dude! Can't remember if I reported that the space under the shed has been opened up for awhile now, though I hadn't been seeing him. I think he's using that as an extra escape path, rather then full time residence.  I saw him, noticeably smaller then the one the other day, across the stream.  He was having problems figuring out how to get across the stream.  The swiftness of the water made him hesitant to cross, plus it's a bit wider, so it's almost impossible for him to jump over like he had last summer.

So he backs out of there and makes his way over to a tree that hangs over the stream. Part way up he realizes it's going UP. So he turns around and goes back down the trunk.

Finally he decides on a branch that lays across the stream and makes it safely over.

 The attraction?  Cracked corn.

 Gets comfy, laying down to eat! 

 He knows I'm watching from the window.  He did run off, and headed for the burrow under the shed.

 This little muskrat has been busy. It seems to be making use of the whole stream. Very ambitious.  Makes me wonder if he's got a mate and needs to do a lot of work building a burrow.

 Though the above pics show him looking a bit like a drowned rat, here you can see that very little of his fur is actually wet.

 While I was following him along the stream I noticed a lot of splashing in some areas he passed.  I suspected what it was, though I thought it was a little early. But the creek chub are making that difficult trip up the stream. It's cool to watch them. They have to flick their fin a lot to make it over ridges of rocks and through the small rapids. They always to go the spot in the stream where it bends around the corner. Creek chub are known for the stone piles they build in streams, into which eggs are deposited. There's plenty of stone here for them!  The one in the photo, also had 2 others right along side him, looking almost like they were riding partly on him.  I'm wondering if they travel like that, using the power of several swishing fins to launch them over the rocks.

One of them startled me, as I must have startled him when I put a bucket in the stream to get some water for the butterfly bush I'd just transplanted yesterday.

What a mess I made of that. I know little of these things, truth be told. I have to look up everything, or ask Sister. I didn't  realize how shallow rooted these plants are, and thus how far out their roots can travel.  It looks like one of them made its way under the patio. I'm hoping I didn't disturb Bobs burrow tooooo much. Let's just say I disturbed a lot of yard yesterday! 

Sister told me I could cut off some of the root.  I had researched about transplanting this, but didn't see anything about the roots until after getting Sisters advice. Then I found more info! Isn't that usually the way?  But actually by talking to her I was able to better define my Google search.

So we'll see if this works or not.

This robin was chirping away. I took some video but seems the sounds didn't pick up nearly as well as I was hearing it.  But you can see it's beak is open. It was a very short chirping. At first I didn't think it was coming from the robin.

It is the high-pitched "Seeeee" call,  given in response to the presence of an aerial predator, like a hawk. Hmmm it mistook me for a hawk?

We're getting some thunder now. That's Spring like isn't it!

new growth

Before I share my stuff I wanted to encourage you to visit this blog:
http://midmarsh.blogspot.com/
Located in Lincolnshire in the UK.  I love seeing the different birds they have in the UK, or the same bird species, but with different colors that he posts.  But the best lately has been the remote video of the visiting hedgehogs!

Now for today, there will not be any duck photos, or duck stories.  I promise.
With Spring there is finally more going on in the yard! woohoo!

Let me start by saying, Sister was right.
Last year I was always worrying about whether something would grow, come back, etc.  Not just worrying, but doubts. A lot of doubts. The ground is crappy here to begin with, and I always compare to her yard which always looks so great in the summer.  And she works hard at it.  I can't say I do the same. 

One plant in particular I had doubts about was the speedwell. It grew, but slowly and it never turned into anything close to what she had.  She told me more then once not to worry, that I just needed to wait till next year, it will be fine.  Some times I thought she was just being the nice.

But here it is, in all three spots I planted it, coming right back up.  I'm very excited by this!

These iris are a welcome sight. They survived last years flash flood.

It looks like the pawpaw trees are ok too.  I wasn't sure about the one I'd just planted before the flash flood, since it dropped about 2 feet of silt and rock on that part of the yard.

Cranberry Ice Dianthus.  One plant that really seems to grow well here is dianthus. Any kind of dianthus.  So I embrace dianthus!

I knew what this was when I took the picture, now I can't remember what it is. I know I saw the foxglove coming back, and the burning bush starting to leaf at the bottom of the plant.

  Daffodils are slowly growing.  Bulbs don't seem vigorous planted here.  Maybe I'll get around to enhancing this little area this year.

 Day lilies.  I'm not a fan but my neighbor had planted these a couple years ago. And they have survived so much, it's best to just let them there!

I knew what this was when I took the picture, now I can't remember what it is.

  
 P. x mexicali (penstemon red rocks)

 Rue!  Good to see this coming up so soon. Sister tells me that the black swallowtail is the first butterfly to come back and this was very popular with them last year for laying eggs.

 ahhh more speedwell!!

 Creeping jenny waking up.

 This also excites me. This is my boomerang lilac I planted last season.  Boomerang means it's supposed to bloom twice in a season.

Cat mint!

bath time!

 Singing his little heart out.  The song sparrows have been spending hours singing.  Nice to hear after the quiet time of winter.

 One of the larger groundhogs getting a drink...

 until he realizes he's being watched. Amzing that he notices, from across the stream and yard AND I was in the house, taking the photo through the window.

 A grackle in the tree. I took it through both screen and dirty window LOL But the sun was shining on him bringing out all those colors.

 The birds have a lot of safe places to hang out. Good thing since the hawk has been very actively chasing the birds and he's quite adept at winging his way through all the trees and brush.

 Not sure what was up with the squirrel. I was watching out the window, it saw me and lay down where he was.

 Then went to the other side of the stream and again lay against a tree trunk.

 This tufted titmouse kept flitting around and landing over my head.  May be checking out my hair for nesting. One did that one summer while Sister was visiting, landing on each of us, in turn giving us the once over, looking up at our hair. Then it flew under the porch and came out with some nesting material.  Guess we didn't have anything worthy!

dark eyed junco

 a molting goldfinch