They say that when it rains it pours, and this week was a case in point on the Ranch. It started raining toward the end of the week last week. Rain is not too common in February. A 40 degree rain fell much of the night on our country. Up high it was dumping snow, but here it was rain. It melted much of the low elevation snow and within 24 hours, it was all liquefied, and wanting to go somewhere. The frozen ground was impervious, and because there is so little around here that’s flat, the water ran downhill.
Within a few hours dry gulches became torrents, creeks became flood zones, and rivers ran chocolate along banks still laden with now dirty ice. Not a great day to be a trout, I reckon. I guess even fish have their LA smog days. I noted the Canada geese didn’t even want to goose around in it. They walked among river bottom forests like turkeys.
Lawson Creek is one of those dry gulches that bisects Alderspring. Lawson Creek is an “ephemeral” stream, meaning it doesn’t flow water most of the time. Water runs in the Lawson Creek channel about every other year, usually in the spring during snowmelt, or after a summer thundershower. The first year we bought this place, Lawson Creek ran with an unusually high spring snow runoff, and the channel eroded and downcut. We worked hard that first year to remediate the channel.
With the rain, frozen ground, and rapidly melting snow, Lawson Creek became a raging torrent of chocolate mud and debris. As we lay in bed at night we could hear boulders rattling down the channel, muffled by 2 feet of foamy chocolate frappe’. We hoped that the bank restoration and sediment catchment work we did would hold, and that our hard-won soils that we have on the ranch would stay intact.
The next morning brought sunshine (thankful!) and the end of the increased flow. Within hours, the channel was dry. Our strategic plantings of grasses designed hold things together was successful and kept the channel and our pastures intact. The foothills were free of snow; the water ran out like a bathtub draining. The geese honked happiness at the sun. Redwing blackbirds came back from their southland vacation early, carrying on in the cattails.
I posted some pictures of Lawson Creek in the aftermath on Facebook as well. I lost some cool ones of the flood happening. I wish I could say that my phone was ripped out of my hands and swept away in the flood and I just barely managed to escape but instead I just lost them in an overly ambitious delete!
Saturated soils on the big meadows also made us thankful for our big Belgian draft horses, Jingle and Belle. We can get our four tons of green grass hay out to our beeves with those strong willing horses, no matter how soft and muddy the ground is. Anything motorized would tear the ground up, but their hooves are made for low impact traction. This is an animal/human partnership that has worked for thousands of years.
Leave a Reply