--more water (in the form of rain) that is. Just as we were starting to enjoy and appreciate the occasional day that offered a bit of sun and warmth, we now have become stuck in an alternating "just lovely" and "cataclysmically dreadful" weather cycle. This being the case, I find myself with little else to remember from the past week apart from the weather. That means as we move smartly along to the photos, they will feature "all water, all the time", with only the occasional change of venue to vary things a bit. Sorry. I'd really rather have something else to photograph and obsess over. Maybe next week. Or month. Or season. Or by freeze-up, which I actually find myself thinking about with some longing, as then at least the mud will be frozen and I can get shoes back on my horse and get riding again.
All was relatively OK until last Monday night, when the skies darkened and by later in the evening we were in the grip of high winds, tremendous rainfall and continuous and violent thunder and lightning displays, right over the city and surrounding area. For three solid hours! Apparently there was also a tornado watch, of which we were happily unaware at the time.
I'm not sure I can recall a storm system of that intensity that went on for such a long time. Generally when they are that wild they blow over and/or out pretty quickly, but this one was relentless. There was a lot of flooding of intersections, low-lying areas, and filled roadway underpasses. Many areas of the city (both commercial and residential) have sustained a lot of flood damage. Mercifully we are not of that number, and every time the now-active sump pump in the basement ejects another large amount of water ( at twenty-minute intervals day and night, lately) I thank my lucky stars that we had it installed, or our basement would be floating as well. One of the more notable newspaper reports of the storm detailed how a manhole cover shot up out of the street, blown by the rising level of water in the storm sewers, and passed through the bottom of a city bus that happened to be driving over it at the time. That's water pressure! In the end, we got about 100ml/4 inches of water in the three hours of the storm.
In my usual foolishly optimistic way, I hoped that maybe Ebon Stables had been spared the storm, but no. As per usual, Ebon took at least as much of a hit as the city did, perhaps more. The first three shots show various angles on what greeted my lens when I got to the barn on Tuesday afternoon. Apparently the water levels were even higher in the morning, including water pouring across the grid road to the barn. By the time I got there in the afternoon the road at least was high if not dry.
Shot one is taken from said road and features some of the show rings.
Shot three is another view of the flooded rings. I photographed a couple of horses jumping in the (then perfectly dry) far ring the day before the storm.
Shot four shows the lower trail to the weir area of the river, a couple of days after the storm. Grandson Mark and I had to go downtown to get his camera sorted out, and since we were in the area we went over to the weir, hoping for some pelican shots. Even the pelicans have abandoned their usual fishing grounds right at the base of the weir waterfall, due to the high water level and great rate at which it is flowing. This shot shows how much higher the river is in the past week, since the rainstorm. The circled area shows the edge of a waterside fence. Usually this is well above the waterline and we can walk right up to that point. The dotted line shows where the river edge was a week or so ago.
The idyllic image of shot five was taken on Saturday evening as I was on my way home from the barn. By Saturday, we had endured another storm on Thursday that left a further inch of rain, and other parts of the province were hit by a severe tornado. The main problem with this lovely "lakeside" shot is that normally the water area with the canoe is a farmstead lawn. I had actually driven past this scene when I had a "what did I just see there?" moment, and had to back up to record the novel visuals.
We did have an absolutely lovely weekend, but it's been pelting rain again all day today and it's still coming down. In theory there is an outdoor dressage show at Ebon in the upcoming weekend, but we'll see. At least there's an indoor option! 
