Irene

This is the Irene who cuts my hair. (That's my buddy Mary in the mirror...her interesting idea, but we should have undone the flash.)

This is also the week that in 2011 the hurricane named Irene struck Vermont.

Reminders of that Irene are all around us. The brown water in lakes that filled with silt is beginning to clear. I assume the silt is settling to the bottom of those lakes. 

This isn't the most spectacular view, but it's a place I drive by near Margery's home.

The water shown in this picture is the normal size of this creek. The rocks were under dirt and grass and brush before Irene. The dirt and vegetation was washed away leaving the rocks as reminders of just how much this stream expanded. And a lot of that dirt ended up suspended in lake water, turning that water brown.

This is the same stream, just a little further up the road. When the water from Irene couldn't spread out, it moved upwards. What is brown dirt now, was green forest before Irene.

This year we could use some of Irene's water. The ground is dry. We haven't seen much rain, certainly not the long gentle soaking rains...

And still so many people with political  power believe we can continue to take from Mother Nature without taking care of her as well.