A Welcome Sight

It would seem that the atmospheric river which was supposed to come ashore on Monday and move slowly down to Southern California just came ashore and parked itself over Sonoma County. Apparently there wasn't even much rain in San Francisco. Some parts of Sonoma County in the hills west of Healdsburg got up to 15 inches of rain. We got about half that.

In Sebastopol, the Barlow, a multi-use marketplace built in old apple packing sheds at the edge of the Laguna was completely flooded. I read in the paper this morning that my favorite dress shop, Tamarind, was chest deep in water, all the stock ruined.

The Russian River crested at 8 feet above flood stage and inundated Guerneville and many houses scattered in quaint little settlements along the river. My neighbor, a realtor was trying to get the latest information on a house on the river she sold just last week to people whose house burned down in the fire. At last report there were four feet of water in their garage and she was hoping  praying that the house, built over the garage, was spared. 

Floods are common here. The Russian river floods often but most people have raised their houses and changes were made some years ago to keep the flood prone river within its banks. These precautions have been largely successful until now. People who have weathered other floods on the river are saying this is the worst they've seen. I suppose when you see a helicopter parked on the Main Street in town you know things are bad....

First fire, then flood, what next? pestilence? 

It was, therefore, lovely to look out the window and see blue sky and clearing clouds this morning. By the time Ozzie and I headed out* the sky was blue and the sun was doing its best, with very little heat, to dry things out.  Ozzie loves the wet grass so he didn't mind getting feet wet. In fact he enjoyed a satisfying full body roll or two in the field. I think the grass, green just last week, turned an interesting red/gold because it froze

*extra