No, I don’t live on the shores of a raging river, but I did this morning. The excess rain of Hurricane Ike blew through and dumped five inches of water onto our neighbor – a dry creek. Suddenly the creek water was way up. Okay, I’ve seen water before. But, an hour later, our back yard was completely covered by a churning brown sea. Our tomato plants, sweet potatoes, and green peas were all under water. The chicken coop was flooded. The water was lapping at our tractor. The neighborhood wild turkeys were flapping their wings in panic. I thought, oh why didn’t I harvest yesterday.

Two hours later, the water was gone. As fast as it came up, it went down — leaving us with a broken fence, a leaning tower of chicken coop, and a field of mud. The chickens (after all, they are birds) survived, although one looked as though she had taken an unexpected mud bath and was shaking from the experience. To my great surprise, the pea plants did not wash away, the sweet potatoes are still rooted, and I was able to pick more tomatoes from the vine for dinner. The rushing five feet of water did not budge our picnic tables.

Did we have a big storm? Yes, lots of branches are down, but the plants stayed rooted.