Wayward Pine Farm: Flooding...not a rare occaision here in the Ozarks

I thought I'd post some pictures of some of the flooding we experienced last fall. While it's not RARE to have flooding, it's also not really NORMAL, either. We typically have flooding in the spring and fall, usually not so bad that we can't get around, but sometimes the river floods. We live just behind the Niangua River, so we have to cross it to get to town. It's not even really a bridge, it's a low-water crossing that has been paved. There are also several other low water crossings along the route.

If the river is flooded, normally we can just turn around and head to the other small town at the other end of the road and catch the interstate from there, eventually getting where we were intending to go in the first place. Last fall...not so much. All low water crossings were flooded, and the Interstate flooded, as well, along many spots. One of those spots was along our alternate route.

The river flooded farm land that had just been hayed, washing HUGE round bales of hay down the raging river. (We made note to not buy any hay this year from those farmers.) They eventually came to a stop along fence lines. Great, deep gullies where the river is normally just a trickle down below was so high it was across the interstate a few feet deep. Many truckers were being advised to take alternate routes to St. Louis, going hundreds of miles out of their way.

Here are some photos of our little road and river crossing. The river took out the neighbor's fencing, and what was left was covered in grass that the river had ripped up in its rage. Typically this crossing will recede in just a couple of hours, but this particular time it was flooded for several days because of the torrential rains. We are thankful to live up on a hill, while the soil is poor on the hill, and not lush like our neighbors have, we don't have a muck pit every time it rains. One of our neighbors can't mow the back half of her five acres because it's nothing but marsh grass back there. Big humps of grass with mush around it. Even when it dries out (in July) it's far too bumpy to do any mowing. During this flooding the water was nearly up to her porch, and all her ground was a soggy mess.