Resurfacing

Many thanks to Donald Eaves for responding to my request for LADY FRIEND by
putting some rhizomes in the mail!

Shortly after my last message to iris-DIGEST last Thursday evening, my power
went out and stayed out until Sunday evening, courtesy of Isabel.  Lost the
contents of both refrigerators, but the big chest freezer survived.  Am also
watching with great relief as a torrent of water gushes down my driveway,
which means my sump pump is working again.  All my neighbors across the street
have flooded basements, but I was spared.

The gardens came through not only unscathed, but improved.  A huge limb from a
neighbor's maple came down and destroyed, as it fell, another of his trees --
a misshapened flowering crab that had been shading one of my front yard beds
for years.  Pascal had kept saying he was going to take that tree down, but
never got around to it.  I helped him cut it into logs which I will burn in my
fireplace with special pleasure.

If any of you have visited Mount Vernon, which is 3 minutes down the riverside
parkway from where I live, you may be able to picture what I am about to
describe.  Vernon View Drive, which leads past my house 3 blocks down to the
parkway, intersects with the parkway on a slight rise.  The Potomac is about a
mile wide there, a slowly flowing tidal estuary.  On Thursday night, upstream
floodwaters, high tide and the hurricane pushing water upstream combined to
raise the level of that enormous body of water by 10 feet or more -- hundreds
of millions of gallons.  It spilled over the parkway 3 to 4 feet deep both
east and west of the intersection mentioned above.  Trees were washed over the
parkway.  Bike path bridges were swept from their foundations.  The local
marina 6 miles upstream was destroyed.  A 35-40-square-block neighborhood
nearby was flooded.  Anticipating the storm, the marina staff had made
arrangements with a shopping center 5 blocks inland to transport their fleet
of sailboats used for teaching to its little-used back parking lot, where they
were set up on blocks.  The river reached the shopping center, and yesterday
they were still pulling sailboats out of people's yards.  Meantime, shaving,
showering and reading by candlelight are, thankfully, over.  Heavy rain again
last night keeps me out of the garden today, but maybe tomorrow . . .

Griff Crump, along the tidal Potomac in Virginia

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