Still raining

Still raining. As of last night, our county is officially under a flood warning. These are the falls in Vergennes, the last waterfall on Otter Creek before it reaches Lake Champlain. The creek is fed by lots of small tributaries that carry off a lot of surface water from this side of the Green Mountains. Even our own little brook feeds into this behemoth, below the falls though. The logs you can see in the center of the picture are usually five or six feet from the edge of the water, so I'd guess the creek is easily 3 or 4 feet above normal. Our home is at a considerably higher elevation so no water fears here. See that red building, right in the middle of the falls? It's an old mill, probably a pretty successful one too. The man that now owns it is a property developer and has his offices on the ground floor (the lowest windows you can see.) There are 2 floors below that that he has plans to turn into luxury(?!) condos. Two floors above will be more ofice space, I believe. Living *in* the falls during nice weather would be amazing. Living there right now? Uh, I do NOT think so! Can you imagine trying to sleep?

The debris in the second picture is the trees and logs and junk that have washed down, just in the past week. We're going to Middlebury this morning and I'll take my camera to see how things look above the falls. What a mess.

Our town has spent considerable dollars in the past few years to make the basin area a recreation draw. Fishing's great, you can do it right from your picnic table right now! (There's a dock under that water. Honest.)