For the next while I will be posting a number of different writings and pictures on this blog. Some (hopefully not) may leave you scratching your head and wondering: “What’s this all about….?” Well there’s a reason – blogmaster Jeff is showing me how to post directly to this blog rather than have to send everything to him for posting. So, just think of it as part of my education – the teaching of new tricks to an old dog.

We are at the tail end of a very substantial flood on the Grand River. The recent warm temperatures and heavy rains eliminated the extensive snow pack and flushed it all into the watershed. The ensuing flood has been even greater than the one we experienced on December 30th and, evidently, higher than the infamous one of 1979. Glenn Rivers, our resident waterflow guy (and an expert I might add) has been keeping me up to date and Betsy Smith, who lives beside the river on the outskirts of Cayuga has been adding enough commentary to keep Glenn vigilant and checking his dials……..

I visited Ruthven last evening to see the results. The flats on the way there from York were all deep in water. At Ruthven, the river was lapping at the base of the hillside right in front of the Mansion – when it subsides, the flats will be littered with chunks of ice that will take a long time to melt. The River Trail is all under water (and from the looks of the trail sign below the Thompson cemetery, under at least 2 feet of water) and most of the Fox Den Trail is flooded. We’ll need a big clean-up effort on April 25th to make these passable. 

Of course, all of this is sort of a bonanza for waterfowl. The flooded crop lands provide rich feeding for geese and ducks. In the deep glow of sunset I saw numerous flocks of ducks winging south probably to spend the night in the relative safety of Lake Erie having fed throughout the day. Although most were just silhouettes, I could distinguish Mallards (and likely other “puddle” ducks), Common Mergansers, and Common Goldeneyes. Seeing these gave me the distinct feeling that Spring was on the way. If this keeps up Red-winged Blackbirds and Killdeer will soon be calling.

Rick