FLOOD...FLOOD...FLOOD...

Fortunately no sandbags were needed at our house in Nanton but it's the closest we've ever come. My dad had to watch as the water rose over the back yard though, never done that before. It's been raining pretty hard the last week, especially in the mountains. I think Alberta's already got it's years worth of rain. I don't know the exact height the creek rose but it's normally 2 feet deep and I think it got up to 12 or 14 feet deep. My mom was out taking some pictures and got a few during the crest of the flood. I don't have any pictures of the yard before so if you havent been there just know that in most of these pictures you can't even see water normally.



The corral, wood pile, and tree farm.

Here you can see our house in the background. This is from the other side of our property. This is all dry land and a small small creek winds its way in behind the horse shed. All under a lot of water.



The gazebo and water well.

The water from our house comes from a well under this gazebo. The flood filled it with dirt and silt so my dad had to shut off water to the house. No toilets, showers, or laundry....that sucks. Whitney is having her wedding out here in two weeks, hopefully we can get it all cleaned up.



The drawbridge and playhouse.

This is where the creek normall runs but it's very small. We often get floods in the spring when the ice starts to break up and back up the water. My dad put in a drawbridge so that he could pull it all out of the way of the ice flows that used to take out our other bridge every year. The brown playhouse got lifted up by the water but fortunately didn't float away. Instead it just tipped forward and scared everyone.



The shed.

This is the shed at the south end of our property. The water almost made it in. It did manage to take out part of the fence that my dad and brother, Jeff, built a couple years ago. Dad says he's just going to leave it at it's new length. Apparently he doesn't try to fight with mother nature. Such a momma's boy. Everything in the shed was pulled up onto our driveway in front of the house.

So, scary times in Nanton. Someone knew this was all coming though. I didn't know this but sometimes geese will actually nest in trees at the beginning of summer instead of building their nests on the ground like they usually do. They did this year and in 1995, the year of our last flood. Somehow months before the flooding happens, they know it's going to be a wet year. Also, two days before the flood our neighbour's horses started running, stomping, and getting all upset. They also knew that something was coming and pounded around the field for hours. It's actually kind of cool to see that. It makes me think that eventually we'll be able to predict weather much better. When we figure out how they do it we could probably predict if it's going to be a dry or wet summer. We'd know about severe storms way before they happen. Cool hey? Maybe I should switch over to meteorology. Hmm...maybe not.

Anyway, the water is receding and the cleanup can begin. I'd really like to help out, mom and dad, but I have to go up to Edmonton this weekend. Sorry. Have a great weekend everyone.