Take a walk on the wild side.....

It was nearly 4 pm when I got back from the MIL's apartment. I'd been cleaning her place most of the afternoon. I helped her pack up her Christmas Decorations and had taken her trees and about 5 plastic tubs of florals down to her storage room.

I kept looking out her balcony window. The temperatures outside had risen to almost 50 degrees. Unheard of in January. I knew the waters would be running off the ridges.

When I got home, I told Rich that I was running off to the creek. The Big Melt was occurring. I had to be there.

And off I went with knee high water proof boots.
However.
Even though the temperature had reached 50 degrees, those areas that had been rained on .. and were on hillsides or deep in the valley had now become pure ice with water on them. I hurried down from the house towards Awesome Creek. I could hear the water pounding the rocks below. It was the January Run Off.
After so many years of observing the creek and the weather, I knew that I'd find brown water and foam in the creek.
Though the creek wouldn't be rising this year as it had in the past. Our snow and moisture level had been low this winter.

Trying to find good spots to take photos got to be tricky. Our cold spells had frozen the creek in some spots. The water was running over ice in those places.
This is a spot where it ran over the ice and back into waters. It looked like a huge foam brill cream type of thing??

I negotiated my way downstream and just had to be amazed.
In some places it wasn't deep, in others, it was too deep to cross.

This area was unique as the water ran over the ice. I had to cross it more than once and I wished I'd stopped to put my Yak Tracks on. Ice Cleats.

In other spots I had to negotiate water and depth. But since I know this creek fairly well, I grabbed a long stick and checked water depth before attempting a crossing.

It took some time, but I was able to find a spot that I could shoot from. I didn't use any filters as evening was coming on and I used the diminishing light as a filter.
For those interested, I used a tripod. ISO of 100, and a 2 second exposure. It caught the water coming downstream as well as the waters coming down the dry run [right hand side of the photo]. The top left is an active part of the creek. Normally the water runs through those rocks and creates a very small waterfall. However it was frozen so the water bypassed it.

As the light was fading from the day, I kept working my way downstream.

This is the 'dry' run. It only gets wet when there are hard rains or run off's like this. It is a gully filled with mossy boulders and challenging climbs all the way to the top of the ridge. The ridge is about 200 ft above this. When the rains or melts get too much for the land to absorb, the water flows into this 'run' and empties into the creek.

The creek flows down through the valley with more dry runs that increase the flow until the creek hits Black Bottom and heads towards the Kickapoo River.

I only had enough daylight left to go to our fence line and take a few last shots before packing up and heading home to make supper.
I really wished...that I'd had more time.
I had the knee high boots and...well.
It was so intriguing.

And there it was.
Taking a walk on the wild side.
Crossing icy boulders and a stream.
Listening to the thunder.

My heart pounding.
Wishing I could sit here and just take all that wildness in.

If this works, here is the video.

I love the Wild Side.

Heaven on Earth

Yesterday I took a walk between storm fronts. The morning rain accompanied by fierce lightening had brought over an inch of rainfall.
So I decided to shoulder my backpack filled with plastic bags to protect my cameras and head through the neighbor's pasture down towards the creek.

I followed a cow path that had rain beaten evidence that cattle had moved through recently. No cow chip throwing today, it was rain soaked cow mush-pie.
I suppose I grinned when I thought of that.
Tossing mushy cow pies would be fun when you were 10 years old.
In fact, I recall my cousins using little fire crackers to blow up juicy cow pies...
ohhh, but that is another story entirely.

I first heard the sounds of water tumbling down.

The water was deeper than usual and muddy.
The moss was enchanting.
The trees dripped water droplets and rustled.
A pine warbler sang a sweet song, and the water eased my soul.

Heaven on earth in my own 'backyard'.

How could I be so lucky to have my own place of 'Zen' within a few minutes hike.

I sat down at this place and felt the dampness of the rain on the moss soak through my pants.
It didn't bother me.
I placed my tripod in the creek's brown muddy water and began to 'shoot'.

Truthfully?
If it hadn't started raining again, and I hadn't had a watch?

Would I have wanted to come back?
Heck no.

The creek holds secrets, the creek bottom is a place to sit and think, if so inclined.
By simply observing the creek, you learn life's important lessons.

You learn to relax.

You learn to simply be.