Monday: The Pleasant Valley Report

Despite a flood warning, and the sounds of heavy machinery and trucks at the end of my street, it was a very pleasant weekend in Pleasany Valley. So far, only the people in the homes closest to the river are sandbagging (we're not). Our next door neighbors are too, but they are in a depression on the landscape and closer to the river.

Our basement is now dry! The water in the irrigation ditch behind our house dropped a foot this weekend (someone did that through the irrigation company) so our sump pump, which was running every 4 minutes, hasn't pumped a thing in days. It proves what I argued to my councilman--the wet basement was caused by an overspill upstream in the irrigation ditch, not the swollen Cache la Poudre river. Was told "tough luck" as the irrigation company rights trumps those of us homeowners.

Today it is very hot, so we are going to see some serious snowmelt. Will keep updating if things develop, but so far, so good. All around town I've been stopping to check river levels and yes, the river is high, but I've seen it this high before.

In other news, the red-tailed hawk nest behind our home has seen some changes. I check it often and have only seen one large chick for the past week. As often happens with raptors, one of the two chicks probably ate the other. Yes, I know, it's a bit sad, but that's nature. Anyway, the remaining chick looks perky.

Made our last rhubarb pie of the season yesterday, as the rhubarb patch is about done producing. But we had a great crop and enjoyed sharing with friends. Speaking of sharing, stop by if you'd like fresh spinach. We have more than we can eat.

Finally, violet-green swallows continue to fly in and out of the nestbox attached to our house. Hopefully, we'll see evidence of chicks soon.

(Poor picture, but the light wasn't great!)