Brown Water

The horses all came in with layers of mud on them yesterday. The pastures were wet with puddles from rain, the air was warm and it was just too just too tempting to take a few rolls. Big fat honey bees were lazily hanging in the air just outside of the barn door, running into our heads as we wheeled out the wet bedding and poop from cleaning the stalls. I brushed the muddiest of the horses before I left, but I only relocated a portion of the accumulated earth. For the white mare it is protection against the bugs. She would rather I do a bad job at cleaning her anyway.

I stopped by the river today, in a parking area at the head of a bike path, to see how the rising waters looked. We hit flood stage today in most spots along the upper Hudson River and some distance south of the Federal dam in Troy. The water was brown with large parts of trees going by in the channel. They will be joined overnight by lawn chairs from the back yards of flooded communities upriver, once they get over the dam. Two male mallard ducks came floating by at 5 or so knots riding the safer run of current near shore.

The winter's precipitation hasn't stopped, it has just changed to liquid form.