Wet Winter

It's been a wet winter this year, raining quite often, sort of like...Vancouver! (Vancvouer's on the brain I guess because of the Olympics—we're watching excellent footage in high def.) I think I heard it's an el niño year. But that's ok, it fills up the lake, which is a good thing, as it allows us to canoe back there. The cats still haven't summoned enough courage to hop into the canoe as we cast off, but it looked like they were thinking about it this time. Instead, they elect to sit on the dock and wait for us to come back. And being winter, it's fairly cold out so we don't stay out very long.

The other activity that the dock affords us is sitting on it in camping chairs. I don't recall where we got them, but they're the kind that have built-in leg rests and cup holders. We make use of both features, sometimes bringing down a cooler with beers to have something to put into the cup holders. It's more fun to do in shorts and sandals than it is presently in winter coats. But it's still nice to sit there and look out on our pond. And if you look closely, you'll see at least one parachute out in the distance over the trees. They're from the Flying Tigers DZ at the Oconee County airport, which is fairly close. I think they're nuts for jumping in February. It's got to be pretty cold up at altitude. I remember my biggest complaint from when I used to jump in the cold was how thin my gloves were. It's really cold on the hands. I bet they're not going to 10,500 this time of year but just doing hop-and-pops. Anyway, they're fun to watch.

This shot is the view of the dock from the corner of our deck. It's nice to see the water from up here. In drought years it was disappointing to look out in this direction and just see meadow. I just hope the Corps keeps up the level through summer. I think the lake level right now is about the same height as it was when we put in the dock back in 2003. Since then I think we've seen two droughts, the first broken by remnants of hurricane Ivan (if I remember correctly), the second possibly the worst drought we've ever had when the Corps let the water drop I think almost 20 feet that's just ending right now. I think the Corps was expecting tropical storms that never came. We'll see what they do with the lake this year. Hopefully it'll be a good year for boating.