hiatus

I am going on haitus for a while. Into the land of dial-up internet access, so I may not post to this blog for a couple of weeks.

Floods part 3

The pictures that I am posting here were talking last Saturday (July 1) from Lambertville NJ. The river was well below flood stage by this time, but was still running a little high. I could tell because some of the trees on the banks were partially submerged. These are trees that are normally completely out of the water.

The Hunterdon County Office of Emergency Management has information on flood levels. You may need to scroll down a little to see the chart. To put this in context, flood stage of the Delaware River at New Hope, PA is 13 feet. New Hope is across the River from Lambertville. I got the information from the weather service, in case you want to check it out. According to Hunterdon County EMS, the River crested at 19.5 feet, the same level as the 2005 floods and below the 24.7 feet recorded from the 1955 floods. I may have said in an earlier post that the 1955 floods, from two back to back hurricanes, seem to be the one that all others are compared to.

In Lambertville, there is an Inn, and a restaurant next to the River, Lambertville Station. The parking lot is next to the river.



Note the arches on the building in the Inn in the photo. According to some footage I saw on the local news a good bit of those arches were under water during the flood. The rooms on the "first floor" are above the arches and, were not flooded (as far as I know). By the way, the restaurant is in a separate building a short distance from the Inn, fronting on Bridge St. Bridge St, as its name implies leads to what the locals refer to as the "free bridge" to New Hope. The picture of the bridge was taken a couple of days after the April 2005 floods, so the River was still high. This was the only photo taken after the April 2005 floods, all the others were taken on July 1. 2006.



The picture of the River is taken from this same parking lot, looking south, towards Trenton. If you stand and watch the River long enough after a flood, you will see all kinds of debris in the river. It is very awesome to think that the spot where I was standing was probably under a few feet of water. I got a small taste of the power of the River.



The street, is Lambert La, if memory serves, and is across the street from the Lambertville Station. It is a mix of commercial and residential. The afternoon we were there, some haz mat vehicles were still on site. Lambert Lane borders the River. This street was still blocked off the day we were there, and the free bridge was still closed, barricaded by the police. I took the liberty of quickly stepping over the yellow tape to take this picture.

Other river towns along the both sides of the Delaware were flooded, we went to Lambertville because the road was open. For the geographically inclined, here is a map. I hope this works, it is supposed to be a google map showing both the roads and the satellite view.

Floods part 2

The flood waters on the Delaware River have receded. I went to one of the river towns over the weekend and took some pictures. I need to spend a little time learning how to post pictures here. So, be patient, and I'll try to do this in a day or so. In the meantime, you may go here to see some pictures.

I ran into someone earlier this evening who lives in one of the towns along the Delaware. Her side of the street was dry, the other side was flooded. We talked about the River and what might be done about the flooding. We didn't come up with any answers.

More later.

Global Warming and Poison Ivy

I did something a little dumb last week. I can be a little single minded at times, so while I was researching and then writing an article that I have since completed, I was neglecting both my weeding and my planting. About one week ago in a break from the rains, I went out and planted a small coleus sprout that we had rooted in one of my flower beds. This is where we plant coleus each year and the weeds were almost overtaking the coleus. So, I pulled out all the weeds and threw them in a pile on my lawn.

The pile of weeds was to large to scatter on the lawn to be cut up the next time the grass was cut, so with out thinking, I gathered up the weeds and disposed of them. A day latter, I noticed the telltale signs of Poison Ivy on my arms. Fortunately only small patches. I quickly applied some Caladryl lotion and the rash has not spread. Now I know what poison ivy looks like. And i could swear I didn't see any. There must of been a small amount of poison ivy in that bundle of weeds that I so blithly picked up and disposed of.

Yesterday, I was greeting a friend of mine, being very careful to not expose her to my Poison Ivy.

I told her that "I hadn't seen any."

She replied, "it can be very insidious."

Then she told me that she had read that global warming was making for more virulent Poison Ivy. I sighed and told her that I had seen the article, and commented that I was in fact writing about global warming earlier.

So now, not only do we have to worry about an increase in storms, melting polar caps, and changing coastlines; those of us who are gardeners or spend any time outside have to worry about an even more virulent form of poison ivy.

I still have more weeding to do. Anyone who gardens has weeding. And all the rains we have had recently, all 8+ inches has done wonders for my weeds.