Since last night, we have had 3" of rain here at Rocky Top. Lasher Creek, which forms a waterfall only a few feet from our deck, is full - no, overflowing. Much of the year it is dry or frozen, not this year of course.

Is it ever ripping today! Anywhere in the house, there is this thunderous background roar. Outside, you can hear rocks moving under the brown water, scraping along the limestone bedrock bottom. If one were daring and foolhardy enough, it could be kayaked; there's enough water. The main waterfall (with no plunge pool) and all the little ones after it might give you some pause. It falls something like 80' in the space of 80 yards, so there are lots of 1 & 2' waterfalls after the main one and the cascade that precedes it. My bridge is built along the upstream edge of the cascade and is 40' long, with fold-up ends. It takes more water than this to make me fold up the ends. They are heavy and it is not done easily by one person. All the summer's detritis, brush, fallen logs and the like have now been swept away to the Mohawk, probably nearing Albany now.

Plus there are 4 "new" streams that were not flowing yesterday, including 2-3 "new" waterfalls. Three of the new streams have not flowed all year, not one day. One of them crosses the lawn on the opposite of the creek, usually as water on top of snow. When this happens, it normally stays channeled and is no more than 2-3' wide. today, it is 10', but flowing clear, unlike the creek. They are all so big that I could not get down to see the lower waterfall, the one that is just feet off my property boundary. Everywhere I went, I got cut off by a stream too wide to cross where normally there would be dry land.

To stand on my bridge watching the water rage 2' beneath you is like standing next to a freight train that is whizzing by. You know - academically - that you are safe, but it certainly makes you nervous.