Like a Hurricane

As we waited out the rainy remains of tropical storm Ida, I was reminded of the preparations made for the arrival of Henri 10 days ago.

The operators of the Ledgemere dam lowered our lake by 1.5 feet on August 21/22 in anticipation of a deluge that hurricane Henri promised, but didn't deliver. It's amazing what a difference it made to our outlook when the sandy edges of our cove were exposed. Herons, ducks and squirrels used the new temporary shoreline to forage.

Mosquitoes loved it too. And we had a few small widow-makers (for killing small widows!) along our boardwalk to deal with afterwards.

This was the shoreline buffer that I'd set up in anticipation of 10 inches of rain. My "insurance" (2 rolled up blankets, as well as a pile of vegetation as a secondary barrier) paid off, and we had very little runoff.

Ida dropped 2.5 inches of rain overnight, leaving us with a pretty nice afternoon: a mosaic of sun, blue sky, and clouds.