Tuesday 3 January 2012

The Difference a Bit of Rain Makes in My World

  
We were very short of water this summer; in fact, a drought was announced.
Hose pipe bans were in force and the field by the river was parched,
farmers prayed for rain and the soil was cracked and dusty.

I remember it well.

This picture was taken in early spring, 
even then the river was low.



This morning I went out with Benno for our usual walk in the field
by the river.
This is what we saw when we came out by the garden gate.
It's the same field and bridge as in the picture above.




Lots of tourists use this bench,
it overlooks a particularly picturesque bend in the river. 


 Down there we play 'fetch the stick' 
and tourists spread their picnic rugs and lounge in the cool shade of the trees
on the banks of the river.


 The ducks are happy;
they are not normally encouraged to swim in the gardens.
 There's a perfectly harmless little stream in there somewhere.
It has stepping stones across and children use it to play at
building dams and to paddle in the shallows.



This post is offered as part of the  Our World Series

54 comments:

  1. Oh my! That's a lot of water! As bad as it looks, I know what a relief it is to have it after a dry spell. We've had some nice moisture by way of snow, and we are finally are out of danger from the dryness. Whew!

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  2. Goodness! What a difference a few months and a lot of rain makes. Nature has her own way of doing things.

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  3. you got more than a little rain...wow...now if the ground would just soak it up...hopefully it is not too hard from lack....

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  4. Totally transformed by rain! The early spring picture is very beautiful!

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  5. Good shot but I find these flood very woorying. I live in an area, 7 meters below sea level like 30% of the Dutch people.

    Greetings,
    Filip

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  6. I am glad you got some much needed rain. I enjoyed the photos. Lovely scenery.

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  7. Wow I've never seen the field that flooded before! Extraordinary!

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  8. What a difference a storm makes!!

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  9. The weather's been rough here today as well. Battened down the hatches and stayed indoors by the fire.

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  10. Dear Friko: Some excellent pictures, especially the panorama. What a view, and flood or not the place is gorgeous! Are the swans really swimming in the garden! Look at it this way, fertilizer!

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  11. No moderation in Nature sometimes. Hope it alleviates the threat of drought in 2012.

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  12. The bridge to nowhere tells the story, doesn't it? I always think it takes a drought for us to appreciate a flood. And your flooded stream looks beautiful!

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  13. Wow! What a difference a few months make. I trust that all of your homes are comfy and dry. The stream and meadow in the spring photo look quite lovely!

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  14. We've had a drought for 10+ years down here in OZ and now its been broken by raging floods :-).

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  15. Now if we were just all ducks...
    ~Mary

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  16. We have several rivers around here but the banks are much much higher. Even so, they have overflowed at times.

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  17. The power of water... How much it shapes lives--people who plan because there is rarely enough, and those who must plan for an overabundance.

    And those who seasonally deal with both. I never felt this until I lived in a town by a river that flooded in the middle of winter.

    Your pictures were a graphic reminder.

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  18. Wow! What a difference!

    We've had so little snow here in Minneapolis that there's talk of drought...

    Pearl

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  19. oh !

    lots of water indeed. feels as if it has become a universe of its own. please be you all safe.

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  20. Holy crap! Such as life in United Kingdom (and BC, Canada where I live) in the winter. So. Much. Rain.
    meh
    Stay dry.

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  21. Yes , we're beginning to feel mildly mildewed , too .

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  22. Oh, my heart is happy for you! Too much can be as much a problem as too little, but this has been our year for awful drought, and photographs like that make me smile and smile.

    Perhaps in this new year things can balance, just a bit. A friend in Scotland just has her electricity back after the current storm. I do hope you're not badly affected by that, and that it's passed north.

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  23. Oh wow. Though your scene in drought looks better than ours ever does. You do green so much better than we do here in Oz. Our green's have a lot of grey in them.

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  24. Yikes! Nothing like overdoing it there, Mother Nature! But the ducks are happy. Reminds me of that saying that it's an ill wind that blows nobody good... :-)

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  25. I heard England's weather forecast for today and immediately wondered if you were getting slammed by wet and wind. So glad you post often. Your little corner of the world always looks so idyllic to this Anglophile; that mess looks more like Pennsylvania! Your ducks are darling,though.

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  26. twenty five below zero celsius tonight in my part of the world. i would love to hear and see and feel rain. i love rain as much as sunshine. perhas that's the mancunian child still very much a part of me . . . . steven

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  27. Oh in California where I live we know about water rationing (people have a hard time holding themselves to it!) So pretty when it's green and sadly looking when flooded.
    Happy New Year to you!

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  28. Wow! Now that is some change! Good grief! One extreme to the next. The weather has sure been unpredictable. Makes you wonder what this coming year will hold.

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  29. Friko, if you remember, and have the time, please do return to the same vantage point in another month and take another photo of this stream. The contrast in this post's photos of the same sight are startling to my eye, but probably not to those of the ducks.

    xo

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  30. We had something similar last year. The weather gets curiouser and curiouser, it seems.

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  31. This spring the park will be in full bloom.

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  32. i know some dogs that would have had a ball in all that mud. i suppose Benno isn't one of them? x

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  33. You make the simplest things delightful and laden with significance.



    Aloha from Waikiki
    Comfort Spiral

    > < } } ( ° >

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  34. The power of water needing a place - amazing, isn't it? We have scenes like that here, as it rains all winter, and then all the water runs down hill (we're really just a big rock) and we are parched all summer.

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  35. Amazing the changes water makes in a landscape. Wonder what those fields and gardens will look like once the water has been absorbed into the ground...

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  36. sehr beeindruckend, wie die Landschaft sich verändert hat und doch, sie hat nichts von ihrer Schönheit verloren.
    Und die wunderbare - friedliche - Beschreibung dazu, hat mir sehr gefallen!
    Ich wünsche Dir einen schönen angenehmen Tag!
    Bis bald!
    Renée

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  37. I heard you had snow for a bit. We are brown like this too, but no flooding, for now. How quickly these things change. I hope all will be well for the tourists. It's easy to disparage them (not that you were), but in this economy we all need all the help we can get.

    Happy New Year, my friend.

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  38. Ooh, proper wellie weather! We've had storms and rain here but we're up high so no floods around here I'm glad to say.

    At least the ducks are pleased.

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  39. There are advantages to living half way up a hill!! That little river rises so quickly. Keep your feet dry. Happ New Year!

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  40. Swimming anyone?? Wow!
    Hugs
    SUeAnn

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  41. Wishing we had received some of that rainfall earlier this fall...going into our long winter with a low level in the pond is a worry...our geo-thermal heating/cooling system pipes must be submerged correctly to operate. So far, so good...but a worry and we could use more snow cover.

    Somehow, Mother Nature eventually balances everything out - in her own time...not ours.

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  42. Gosh and I thought our rain was bad!! I think your timid little stream is learning to stretch its limits!! Are you good swimmers? I do hope so!

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  43. All the rain will help those trees make a comeback next spring. Their roots can dive deep for water, but even they get stressed during droughts. Happy ducks. I love ducks. Dianne

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  44. What a contrast! And what a lovely place to take a dog for a walk (or for a swim.)

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  45. What a lovely blog you have, Friko. I came here via Cloudia's link to your poem. I'll be back on a daily basis. Aloha from Hawaii.

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  46. What a difference! We haven’t experienced drought for a long time. Instead, torrential rain has caused landslides and flooding, changing city streets into muddy rivers. Hope this year be blessed with moderate weather. Wish you a year of good health, peace, and prosperity.

    Yoko

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  47. it's not a proper british summer until you've seen someone canoeing down a main road on local news

    it has certainly been raining a bit recently, hasn't it?

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  48. Exactly the same here in Belgium ! No water in summer and too much now ! Today it storms and it pours impossible to go outside if you don't want to be blown away or get wet til the bones !

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  49. Unbelieveable! BUT ... I'm talking about the FIRST picture! To my little Aussie eyes, that SO doesn't look like a drought!!!

    Happy New Year!!

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  50. Yes, it's been wet, Friko. We had about 2" overnight and the Severn is looking very full indeed....

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  51. What a flood! I live in a river valley that floods regularly, and it always amazes me, the color of the water like coffee with cream.

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  52. Quite amazing photos... Too much of a good thing and there you have the flooding that can cause so much damage.

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  53. What a beautiful place to be. I'm sure in a few months, the water will recede, the grasses will be green and the ducks will be close, if not in the garden!

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