Yesterday was one of the first gloomy days since we moved to Boulder Creek.  At around 3, I walked outside to get the towels off of the line and was treated to the most amazing experience.

It started raining all around me (Lucky timing with the towels!).  I was sheltered by the trees surrounding our deck, so was completely dry.  I could hear the drops falling on the creek and the leaves in the forest around me, and it sounded like a chorus of quiet crickets.

Our neighbors warn us that the river will rise quite high in the winter.  I can’t get a straight answer as to how far it will rise, so here are some “before” pictures of the view of the creek from our deck.  I’ll check back in mid-january!

The cement piece is a bit of the dam that broke off upstream.  James and I have walked up and down the creek as far as we could without flotation devices, and found a few of these dams.  Apparently, when this was a logging town, the dams were used to hold up water and logs.  When the time was right, the dam would be unblocked and the logs would be sent downstream to the next dam, where the same process would be repeated again.  No fossil fuels necessary, I think this method of transportation was pretty clever.  Now we use giant trucks that guzzle fuel and cough out smog, so the dam lays forgotten in ruins.