Hurricane Irene blew into town last Sunday. The forecast was for rain and high winds. The winds never materialized but the rain certainly did. So. Much. Rain. It rained hard and fast for hours and hours.
By early Sunday afternoon it became clear that the 36-inch culvert under the road wasn't going to be able to handle all the water. The stream became a rushing torrent and tore through the road again, for the third time this year. What we didn't know was that roads and bridges were going out all over town at the same time, so we were really and truly stranded for two days. (We managed to get to work on Tuesday by taking a 45-minute drive around back up country roads to the one road that they managed to open. Normally, my commute to the college is 5 minutes.)
This time, the stream cut a channel right INTO the foundations of the hay barn. For a while I thought she was a goner. We managed to pile some scrap tin by the northwest corner to divert the water somewhat, but the cribbage supporting the rear corner blew out. Somehow, the barn is still standing. I guess after 175 years it will take more than a hurricane to bring it down, the frontier farmers that built it knew what they were doing.
While we were distracted by the road blowout, the water in the field started to rise rapidly. The Dog River frequently comes up in spring and creates a lake in the field, but I've never seen the water actually FLOWING THROUGH the field! The trees you can see out there, apparently in the middle of the river, are normally about 30 feet in from the edge of the river. This is an unimaginable amount of water. We rushed to get the horses out and created a temporary fence for them on the higher ground of the lawn.
This picture was taken next to the dairy barn. I just can't believe how deep that water is, so far up in the field! Each of those T-posts is about 5 feet high.
The next morning the field was a rocky, muddy, mucky mess. Uprooted trees are everywhere. The water had to have been 6 or 7 feet deep here in the lower field, because even the tall corner fence posts were submerged. (We were in the river Saturday, before the hurricane, it was knee deep. And a hundred feet away from here.) After things dry out, we are going to have to get a backhoe or bulldozer to push the rock out of the field if we want to have a horse pasture again next year. Not to mention chainsaws and a pretty massive bonfire to deal with the downed trees. Most of the trees seem to have come from upriver somewhere, only a few of our trees came down. Unfortunately, one of the trees we lost was the one we had our canoe chained to.
We spent most of Monday morning rigging up a new fence for the horses, up on the lawn near the house. They are thrilled, of course. They love eating the thick green grass. And Austin is pretty happy because he won't have to mow any more this year. In all, we feel grateful not to have lost more than we did. The barn is still standing, the pasture is reparable, and the water got nowhere near the house. Our neighbors further down, on Water Street, were all evacuated and came back to find 4 feet of mud on the main level of their homes. It has been a sad sight to drive down Water Street now that our road is repaired, and watch people piling all their furniture and possessions into dumpsters. The only thing we lost was the canoe. We heard about canoe sightings in Northfield Falls and Montpelier and figured our canoe was in Lake Champlain by now.
Or, maybe not! Austin took Major out for a ride last night and guess what he saw, HANGING IN A TREE, down by the Norwich soccer fields? The canoe was full of mud and debris, but still had the paddles and seats in it! He freed it and cleaned out what he could, then we dragged it home. Austin was a mess -- the kids decided he looked like a Mud Goblin -- I made him take his clothes off outside on the porch before he came in. But he was so happy to have found the canoe. So I guess that means that we didn't really lose anything in Irene. We are feeling very blessed and grateful.
