Day 90

The Ipswich River's Sylvania Dam completely submerged.

Floods, pestilence, the end of the world!    No, just floods. 

There is a peninsula town called Freetown in Massachusetts which is now an island, and a part of interstate highway 95 in Rhode Island is shut down for "a few days", there are flooded basements, broken dams, deep potholes, ponds where there were never ponds before, and rivers bursting their banks all over the place!  We have so many rivers here and lakes (which are mostly called ponds here) shine everywhere you look.  There is so much water that it was at first so strange and unfamiliar to me, coming from a water-starved country, with only about 9 major rivers in the whole of South Africa.  We were raised to be so careful with water.  My parents watered their garden with the rinse water from their washing machine, which they caught in the bath and used buckets to take out to the precious plants.  I have witnessed people here leaving the water running at full speed into the plugless sink while they rinsed one plate at a time before putting them into the dishwasher, where they were going to be washed all over again!  And I am constantly teaching children at my school how to wash paintbrushes using the least amount of water.

I know the flooding has caused a lot of damage, but it was thrilling to see my little babbling brook surging downhill, and to see green creeping everywhere, and, most exciting of all, I finally saw an animal in the tree cavity I sometimes visit right at the  bottom of the 3rd meadow. 

The identity of this animal has always been a mystery, and, I'm afraid to say, remains a mystery, although the boys think it is a porcupine after looking at my photograph, which doesn't show very much, does it? 

Over the years since I noticed this large perfect nest-cavity, I have heard an animal grunting in there quite a few times, and have attempted various methods of taking a photograph.  I have tried to climb/balance on the saplings next to it so that I am high enough to take a photograph, but that didn't succeed as I slid down before I could get a good shot.  I tried tying the camera to the end of the plastic slingshot thing that I use to throw the ball for Molly, but it wouldn't stay on.  I have even dropped Jess on her head (again) in the snow, trying to give her a lift up, camera in hand, and failing miserably!  Once I took Tim with his tripod and fancy camera, but there was nothing in there that day!

The animal has what looks like greyish long fur, which Nick is convinced are quills, and several images on the net would seem to prove his theory.  It was too large for a squirrel, and I could see it breathing, I watched it for quite a time, very quietly, and all it did was breathe and sleep.   

So here we are in the 3rd meadow, with the sun coming out again, with the soggy green and naples yellow patches, and the trees just beginning to put on their new clothes.