Cop Car's Beat

Derby flooding - starting 5/20/2019

For ease of later retrieval, I am importing the flooding information into this posting out of the Tee Shirts posting.

Status report as of 5/20/2019 8:36pm: The creek is up to its banks, now, we've already had 2" of rain, and are expecting another 3". We are under possible evacuation alert - eastern part of Sedgwick County, on a creek. For the first time, ever, I have packed essential stuff into my car (it filled 1/2 of the trunk.)  If the water gets high enough (which we are expecting it to do), Hunky Husband will pack his car. If we evacuate, I expect us to leave at the same time. We plan to take turns watching the back yard through the night. 

Note to Bogie: Your quilt and materials are in my trunk. I'm not losing all that work to any flooding - lol!

Status report as of 5/20/2019 9:22pm: Hunky Husband just toddled off to bed. When he came in to give me a good-night smooch, he showed me an alert on his cell phone. Our City of Derby is under Flood Watch through next Sunday! I have the night watch.

Status report as of 5/21/2019 8:52am: The creek is high and thus somewhat out of its banks; but, it is flowing well and has not yet come up into the wild grass area of our yard. So far, I’ve not seen any logs floating down the creek – thanks to the clearing action of the flood a couple of weeks ago, no doubt. It rained off-and-on, all night. I failed to ask HH how much rain he removed from the gage.

Status report as of 5/21/2019 11:15am: Hunky Husband reports 3.3" in the rain gage. Sporadic rain falling.

On behalf of Ingineer66

Ingineer was kind enough to grant me permission to post some photos that I had asked him to send. I hope he will also grant (too late!) the same for an excerpt from the email that accompanied his first two photos.

"Hope you are staying safe with all the tornadoes and hail out your way today.

 
"I was waiting for a sunny day to take some photos, but finally gave up since winter is never going end this year.  We got partly sunny skies today so here you go.  Feel free to post anything that you would like.  

"There are two photos of the “Drop Dead Red” rose tree that I planted for Mother’s Day.  A photo of one of the eight baby Windmill Palm trees that I brought from the Chico house and planted here.  I had a tree that was having babies so I put some in pots a few months before we moved.  And a photo of a variegated privet.  The sellers [of Ingineer's recently acquired house - CC] planted several of these and green ones around the planters.  They would be better suited to a row of them as a hedge or something.  Not scattered around like individual plants."

Please note that Ingineer attempted to send photos constituting too many MBs for email service; thus, at least a couple of the photos that he writes that he is sending have not, in fact, arrived. Perhaps he can take the time to send them, later. If so, I shall happily add them to this posting.

View 1 - Rose tree that Ingineer had planted for his wife for Mother's Day

View 2 - Same rose tree. FYI, Ingineer, I had to convert your files to JPEG in order to upload them. While I was at it, I cropped the photos - a tiny amount for the above photo, a larger amount for the next photo, to shorten the upload times.

Pretty White Flower - Because I cropped it out in the above photo

All of the plants are beautiful and I'm looking forward to more photos from Ingineer, the lucky dog who lives in California.

Tee Shirts

Over the years I've occasionally put together groups of tee-shirts (or pillows) on which were presented "cute/smart/sassy" sayings or visual treats. Instead of awaiting accumulation of such trivia, I present the photo of a tee shirt that was posted by ZapperZ at Physics and Physicists on 5/12/2019, The Geekiest T-Shirt That I've Ever Bought, below.

The shirt reminds me of a conversation I had with our next-door neighbor following our last flood. Whatever it was that I was trying to tell Fred, I couldn't think of the word "momentum"; so, I told him, "You know, mv." Fortunately, being a dentist, he had completed enough physics to translate mv as momentum. To his further credit, he asked, "Isn't momentum sometimes given as p?"

Status report as of 5/20/2019 8:36pm: The creek is up to its banks, now, we've already had 2" of rain, and are expecting another 3". We are under possible evacuation alert - eastern part of Sedgwick County, on a creek. For the first time, ever, I have packed essential stuff into my car (it filled 1/2 of the trunk.)  If the water gets high enough (which we are expecting it to do), Hunky Husband will pack his car. If we evacuate, I expect us to leave at the same time. We plan to take turns watching the back yard through the night. 

Note to Bogie: Your quilt and materials are in my trunk. I'm not losing all that work to any flooding - lol!

Status report as of 5/20/2019 9:22pm: Hunky Husband just toddled off to bed. When he came in to give me a good-night smooch, he showed me an alert on his cell phone. Our City of Derby is under Flood Watch through next Sunday! I have the night watch.

Status report as of 5/21/2019 8:52am: The creek is high and thus somewhat out of its banks; but, it is flowing well and has not yet come up into the wild grass area of our yard. So far, I’ve not seen any logs floating down the creek – thanks to the clearing action of the flood a couple of weeks ago, no doubt. It rained off-and-on, all night. I failed to ask HH how much rain he removed from the gage.

Family Week

This past week has been the week for family. Wonderful Granddaughter invited us to her Registered Nurse Pinning Ceremony on Thursday, May 16, 2019 (photo, below). We were all smiles when her fiancée snapped the photo, below.

Elder Brother arrived Friday afternoon - to see family, but also to do some birding. We all gathered for lunch on Saturday, at a local pizza shop (whose owner we've known since the mid-1960s when he first opened the shop) - photo, below.

Finally, after filling our stomachs, we re-convened at Hunky Husband's and my home. Since Elder Brother had seen only one of the quilts that I've made for family members, we put on a show for him. Each person for whom I've (so far) made a quilt was asked to bring the quilt. Note that in the photo, below, Wonderful GrandDaughter filled in for Bogie, displaying her (so far) un-finished quilt.

Interestingly enough, WichiDude requested that I delay starting his quilt until he retires. He wishes to help make it!

Something strange in our rose bed

In March, I posted The week in passing - 2019Mar24 which included a photo of the five rose plants that I had purchased and planted for Hunky Husband - to replace the roses that we had brought over from our previous house which were taken out in Spring 2018 to be replaced by grass. Something strange has taken place! Four of the five roses that I planted in March have budded out. Below is a photo of each of the rose bushes.

Tropicana - not yet budding

Rosie the Riveter - The first bud was eaten by some critter one week ago.

Peace

Midas Touch

Mr Lincoln - And, finally, the strange rose - a yellow Mr Lincoln. Of course, one must assume that it is the tag that is wrong rather than the plant.

The buds on the "Mr Lincoln" look to be the same color as the Midas Touch. Since the rose plants had been purchased from Jackson & Perkins by the nursery from which I purchased them, potted, either place could have been the source of the erroneous tagging. Unfortunately, this means that HH has no red roses, as yet.

I recall that, while choosing the rose plants in March, I considered buying two Mr Lincoln plants to assure that HH would have red roses even if one of the plants failed to produce blossoms its first year. Who knows how that would have ended? Perhaps with another yellow rose or, perhaps, with the coveted red rose. A trip to the nursery is on my to-do list for Monday. [Wonderful Granddaughter's Registered Nurse pinning ceremony is being held this evening and Elder Brother arrives in town, tomorrow; so, a trip to the nursery will have to wait.]

Mr Lincoln - Blossom from October 2009

One more entry into the non-ecclesiastical litany on flooding at CC's

As I mentioned in a comment a few days ago, we have experienced "one more" flood - not of our house, I hasten to add, but of our property of which about 40% or so is designated as "drainage" easement. [A listing of easily found previous postings on the subject of our floodings, over the years, is included at the bottom of the posting.]

Tuesday of last week, Hunky Husband (my resident weather guru) and I were watching the weather. We had been experiencing rain, off and on, for a week or two. Weather was forecasted to dump another 3"-5" of rain on us. I heard the thunder and the pounding rain, off and on, all night. When I awoke Wednesday morning, HH had already been outside and marked the position of the resulting flood waters in our backyard. I could see that the nearest approach to our house had already passed...the water was receding. Below are photos that I took from our back porch as soon as there was enough light to take them.

There are several "views" shown in the photos, below. The upper version of each view, the larger photo, was taken at about 7:30AM while the lower version, the smaller photo, was taken at about 11:30AM. (I had actually taken photos, again, at 12:30PM by which time the creek had returned, nearly, to the confines of its banks; but, some of those photos are even worse than the photos at 11:30PM.)

View 1 shows the portion of the creek that we saw across Tonya & Jason's (T&J's) yard - approximately due East and showing the most upstream water that we see. [Our house is aligned at 45-degrees to the Cardinal compass points.] The rest of the photos are taken as I panned left-to-right. 

View 2

View 3

View 4, below, looks more-or-less due South.

 

View 5

View 6

View 7 - Unlike previous views, the upper (larger) photo was taken at about 8:30AM, my having failed to snap one at 7:30AM.

HH told me that we received over 7" of rain in the first eight days of May. I measured from the edge of our patio to the high-water mark to be 33' 4".

___________________________________________

Previous Cop Car's Beat postings concerning (or at least including information about) flooding of our property:

May 2008: The Rains Have Come...and Come...and Come....

May 04, 2008: Progress on Downed Tree

June 13, 2008: We've Not Had 40 Days & 40 Nights, but We've Had Enough, already!

April 27, 2009: Annual Flood – 2009 https://jelliclecat.typepad.com/cop_cars_beat/2009/04/annual-flood-2009.html

July 03, 2016: We set a new high

August 20, 2016: Enough, already!

September 18, 2016: More photos from trip to New Hampshire

There's a conspiracy

Originally posted on 5/5/2019 at 12:50PM

Always, I blame the weather: too hot, too cold, too windy, to rainy....I claim that there is a conspiracy to keep me from getting outdoor work done.

Spring is when I most need to accomplish the outdoor work, but it has been difficult. It has been raining, which keeps me out of the woods for fear of lightning and for the muddiness, and it has been blowing, and hot. As I may have mentioned, heat and I don't get along well since I am unable to produce cooling sweat. At any rate, finally, this morning, I was able to get out into the yard and woods, spending 90 minutes which is about my limit when I've not been doing that sort of work for a few days. After finishing, I took a few photos. (Although the photos are dated 5/4/2019, my camera's calendar is off. All photo were snapped today, 5/5/2019.)

When I went out to work, the first thing I did was to dig up an airplane plant bunch, potting it. Although airplane (spider) plants are supposed to grow in horticultural Zones 9-11 and we are in Zone 6, these have managed to live through three or four of our winters - during a couple of which we have reached sub-zero (Fahrenheit) temperatures. Some summers, I plant our indoor plants outside to give them a taste of freedom. One fall, I got tired of potting plants, leaving a bunch of the airplane plants outside. It amazed me when they sprouted up the next spring. Now, I am low on houseplants, so made the effort (quite small effort when the plants are so small!)

 

Addition of 5/14/2019 - Previous posting on that plant on June 09, 2018

for Janet - Airplane plants in the great outdoors in Derby KS

The following photo shows a plant that I found in the woods. I've no idea what it is; but, perhaps someone (Bogie?) can help identify it. The plant is about 10-12 inches tall with blossoms that are about 1.25" across.

(Photo, below, added on 5/6/2019 - Side view showing tiny seed pods just starting to form)

The following photos are of a weed that, for some reason, has thrived this spring. I've seen the weed since I was a teenager out on birding hikes in the woods in Kansas City, Missouri; but, if I ever knew what it was, I don't recall. The stems are long, skinny, square, and covered with clinging hairs. It puts out really small seed burrs that catch in pet fur and on our clothing. This is the first year that it has been abundant in our woods, but it really is!

Closeups

Another unknown weed has become prevalent in our area over the past 5-10 years. It grows in sun or shade, is about 6-10 inches tall, grows in clumps, and has lilac-colored blossoms.

Then there are the purple winter creepers that have taken over the banks of the creek. They are from Asia and got loose from planted specimens that, in my opinion, should never have been sold in this area of the world. They will cover the ground as ground-cover, for which they are sold, or they will grow as bushes or vines that climb up the tallest of trees. Just keeping them from choking the trees in our woods is a job!

 

Purple winter creeper is a gorgeous plant but, like kudzu, it is horribly invasive, desiring to take over the world.

Just because they're pretty

Below is a photo of the first iris blooms we've had this year. Up the street, I noted some beautiful irises (mostly a gorgeous white at Kermit Daum's house) in bloom, yesterday. One of our blooms was open, yesterday; but, it was raining. (As with most of the photos I take, I ignore the calendar in my camera. It is usually wrong! The photos, below, though tagged 5/4/2019 were taken, today, 5/5/2019.)

As I wrote in early April, in More activity in our woods, I had Jo-Jac's remove a bunch of overgrown yew bushes from the northeast side of our house. I've planted hostas in some of the space that was freed up - shown in the following two photos. Note that the edges of the leaves in one photo are green, while cream in the second photo. I don't know the big deal difference; but, one kind cost $11 per plant while the other cost $13 per plant. (I don't know which was which!)

Back in the woods are several hostas that I planted at least 15 years ago. They get overgrown by grass and weeds, but they do well back there. The photo, below, shows two walnut saplings in the foreground with one of those hostas. They are near the graves of Cop Car and Jelly, our late cats whose graves are marked by the concrete blocks. The round black "thing" on the concrete block is a drain cap that I found in the woods - years after the flood displaced it. The drain cap was replaced by a new one when I couldn't find the old one; but, it might be handy to have an extra.

The following photos show 1) the largest of the four sumacs planted last fall, 2) the new whitebud tree planted about 10 days ago, and 3) the lineup of redbud saplings and the whitebud to show the grouping that I'm hoping will produce outstanding contrasts in coming years - whether I'm here to see the displays or not!   ; )

Unfortunately, the above photo was taken about one week too late to show the white blossoms. The blossoms are now brown and withered.

 

Some years ago, I planted a rather large amount of vegetable garden that included some herbs. To my surprise, the basil that I planted in the corner between steps and back porch lived through the winter - eventually becoming a rather large bush. At about that point, Bogie came to visit. She (in a kindly way, of course) corrected me. What I had called "basil" was actually a sage plant.

When the new porch was installed in 2017, I hacked out most of the sage, planting sprigs of it in a couple of other locations. This spring, I've had to hack the sage in the original location back, again; but, the sage plant that has grown from one of the "sprigs" was left to produce blooms. The photo, below, shows those blooms. In a couple of weeks, I'll trim this sage plant back so that it doesn't crowd the roses that I planted a few weeks ago.

Vocabulary lesson for the day

Source: All Hat No Cattle

Finished & delivered - Dudette's Quilt

That is Hunky Husband playing peek-a-boo to display the quilt.