Is it?
Does time exist?
Well in some instances time may well exist as a construct of our changing seasons and the global climate change. Winter rainfall area 15 years ago to summer rainfall area now.
Why I haven't written in so long is complex and disturbing. Disturbing because I was near to my computer but unable to write. And, complex, because I have been interacting with the weather (read, "standing in the middle of a river waving a plastic napkin at a flood...no, seriously, I've been wet with no hope of the concept of dry").
Ok. Lets travel back in time...you imagine funny music playing and I'll see Wayne and Garth waving their hands and singing...here we go... its the end (my typically late posting time) of November (20th of) 2007. Samantha goes to Cape Town to meet with accountants. I stay on the farm to handle the weeds and continue pruning vines and apples. Tuesday afternoon it starts to rain. Rain at this time of year is usually interesting but not overly harmful or damaging...hail sometimes happens in the valley areas but normally we have none of the damage associated with heavy spring rainfall.
It rains.
It rains. And, it rains.
Then funny thing is, it rains more.
And more.
And more.
And more.
Then, from out of the blue, it rains harder.
We're both imagining real rain. The kind of rain one would associate with South East Asia.
Then, it rains with real intent. We're talking about raining on a tin roof with a vibrancy more commonly associated with a drunk composer playing a harp (think Japanese modern musica Art and engage John Cage's maxim that "all noise is music, unless you don't like it and then it simply becomes noise for you").
Are you doing this...ok...now turn up the volume to pre 1990's Van Halen rock concert level and you'll begin to understand the increased level of "music" the heavens were releasing.
Typically we've all had this sort of "wow its raining very hard" moment and then feel like a twit for having thought that phrase, because, really, its only rain.
Then it didn't stop raining all night.
Wednesday morning. Same rain. Maybe harder, but never less. Checked the rain gauge. Full. dumped it...two hours later...full again...three hours later...full again...
That was 300+ mm of rain in +/- 20 hours (6pm Tuesday Afternoon to 2pm Wednesday).
I stopped checking the gauge and started moving around the farm to see if I still had access to the dam, the roads, the vines and the apples. The Pump at our small river is far from the water. The roads are fine. The Dam is filling. In general things are ok for having received so much rain so fast...By The Way, have I mentioned that the rain does not stop at any point during this entire "check the farm" period. It's now four in the afternoon and it rains a little less. I take the kids for a walk and we all are soaked through before we arrive at the dam (less than 100 mtrs away). I abandon all hope of stopping them from getting too wet and engage the puddles and rain with as much joy as they do...I should have taken it more seriously.
We return to the house and only just in time as the heavens open up, again.
I don't really sleep. I toss and turn all night. I forget about the rain gauge. And think only about the vines, the apples and the pump.
Thursday morning. Still raining.
Take the pick-up for a spin in the mud. Get it firmly locked into a donga of note. Tractor will get it out in a day.
Pump still there but water is rising fast and I no longer have a way of removing it. I walk to the end of the farm. The creek/river level has risen substantially. It now spans 25 meters. And, is moving at about 100,000 liters a second (this amount is measured by multiplying width, depth, 1 meter distance, and counting to ten...). The main "Without End" river is higher than the highest point ever recorded. the surge of water has created an island of our area. We remain "cut off" from the rest of the country and are accessable only by helicopter. Since Wednesday we'd been cut off from everyone else. The bridge outside of Greyton (built to withstand a 300 year flood) is made into an island. A mate of ours, Brent Cadle, takes a phone vid of a 50' Oak tree speeding merrily down a full flood river at about 30mph. In Greyton, houses (and silly bowling green inanity) get flooded and washed clean with a scouring layer of mud.
It starts to rain a little more at the house, but not on the main road. One neighbour has 35 hectare under 2 meters of water. Another has 16 hectare under a meter of water. Yet another still, has lost 1200 sheep and will have to sell their farm. One's tourist area on the riverside is washed away and he cannot spray his apples on the hillsides for all the sliding the tractors are doing.
My apples have a river running under them. A thin sheet of water that unless you're standing in it you cannot see. the water table under the trees has risen to 3 cm from the surface. Puncture it and you sink two meters deep. Jump on the ground and it moves in waves like a stone in a pond. Trees rise and fall like high wire artists on terra firma. I go back to the house.
The small house has a thin layer of mud on the floor.
The pump...well I forgot about the pump. Good thing, too.
Friday morning.
Sam drives back to within a kilometer of the house. We dislodge the bakkie. We see our pump gone...just a broken pipe leading to a deep pool of water where there used to be a weir of sorts. The river is still in full flood (well full flood as per last year's 100 year flood) a day after the rain stopped.
Saturday. I tried to spray the apples. Got one tractor stuck in the mud. Got a neighbours Huge tractor stuck in the mud. Then we got his bulldozer stuck. (Its still there December 18th, 2007.)
That night I was late to a wine tasting and dinner because of the tractors and bulldozer. Somehow wine schmoozing was not high on my list of "things to do". But, the Oak n Vigne being the fantastic venue it is, put on a great wine tasting and I was one of, an albeit extremely late, full house of sozzled personages. Was a great cap to a rough week. Sam of course was the belle of the ball and WOW'd the crowd with her passion and knowledge.
Then, just for fun, it rained two days later and freaked everyone out but good.
Love,
Jake
P.S. The vines are fine. The apples are...covered in russett/fusciladium. Motto from all the farmers in the valley...plant on the hillsides. This area is officially, now, a summer rainfall area, per the department of agriculture...and we're only 2 hours from Cape Town, which is a winter rainfall area. I love "the global warming"...NOT!
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