Sorry for the lack of updates; I am out of the habit of ‘blogging. When I leave work the last thing I want to do is spend more time looking at a computer; especially now, when the weather has finally turned and the monsoons are coming home to roost.

Last week Grand Rapids had a genuine mud-slide ; the first I have heard of in my fifteen years living here.

Yesterday I took a two-hour walk around Riverside Park, which was mostly under water. I have a couple of pictures up in the River Project section of es.o. They scarcely do it justice.

The water in places reached from the river to Monroe Street, a distance of over a hundred yards. Where people usually play disc-golf, a blue heron caught fish.

As I was leaving, a group of river pirates on jet boats invaded the park and snatched several children from the playground equipment.

Today the river at the 6th Street Bridge dam is so high that surface tension is almost re-asserting itself; a state which would turn the dam into “just another big rock in the river”. At the fish ladder, the water on the sidewalk is knee-deep. Even when the ice let go in March the water wasn’t so high.

Local experts say that the river could rise as much as three more feet over the next two days, which would put the water well up onto Monroe Street, and do a good job of reminding us that we live in a flood plain.