Swannanoa River

 

A very slow moving stream has the honor of the name Swannanoa River. Other streams coming down from various valleys and coves in the area will help it double in size before it joins the French Broad River near Asheville, and then continues north to join the Tennessee and the Ohio and finally the Mississippi on its way to the Gulf of Mexico. Whew...lots of water going down hill!

I walked at Veterans Park on Sunday. There were lots of spaces where baseball and soccer are played, and kind of interspersed with the walk was an Ultimate Frisbee Course.

This is something new, getting kids interested in snorkeling to see some of the wildlife in the river. In summertime I hope.

The river made the big arc, and whatever had been inside the circumfrence before, has now become 4 baseball fields, a soccer field, and lots of parking space. Oh yes, and in the summer-time they hold a free concert there on Thursday evenings.

As far as interesting walks however, this one is in the minus column. Perhaps because everything has died down to winter grey and brown...but big open spaces with sports venues don't attract me.

Today's quote:

Squirrel medicine reminds us to set aside some of our most precious resources as an investment for the future.

Near the Community Garden

 The Swannanoa flows along on the side of the gardens

In the distance are some of the Black Mountains, the oldest mountains in the US. Here some of them are also called the Seven Sisters.

A strange looking bird nest box, with a baffle to keep out animals who like to eat eggs. 

The highway in the distance is I-40.

I was really trying to capture the greening of the mountains...which starts in the lower elevations and creeps up the mountain sides.

My guess is these are raspberry canes along the wire, but I don't know the low plants. Maybe comfrey?

Today's quote:

Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race.

-H.G. Wells, writer (21 Sep 1866-1946)

Around this time last year...

 In Februry/March 2018, the Swannanoa River glided it's way through Black Mountain. This was before flooding later in the year which dropped some of the trees along the bank, and gouged some different paths for the water.  I loved seeing the mist of green ground cover coming back in this picture.

A year ago I was in Florida visiting my oldest son.  And the rest of his family. And friends too.  It was a really nice week.   But that sky is only what Florida can offer in February!

OK, I know you now want to see (as do I) what the river looks like now.  Since it's still raining, we both will have to wait a day or two till I can walk around the ground near the river without sinking in.

Michael, the hurricane here

While we watched on TV (when the elec was still on) with our mouths hanging open, the damage this Category 4 hurricane made in the Florida panhandle yesterday (having come ashore Wed. around 1:30 pm)...his waters finally gave out on Thurs here in the afternoon.

Black Mountain had received over 7 inches of rain in that 24 hours.  Old Fort had even more.  And Marion even more than that.  So no wonder there were flash flood warnings!  Mountains give up the rain pretty fast, and yet...the good news was that it didn't rain so badly over toward the coast where the last hurricane Florence had flooded the low lands with continued rivers overrunning everything.

So I just wanted to add this weather to my history page...here.

If I drive down my street, Blue Ridge Road, down the hill, across US 70 at the bottom of the hill, across the tracks, then about a block, there's the Swannanoa River, usually just a creek hereabouts.  That guard rail shows the usual length of it, and it's usually running perpendicular a few feet under the road (South Blue Ridge Road here).  But yesterday around 10 am, a Black Mountain News photographer captured it as it flooded to the pavement.  It has gone higher in the past, but this of course closed the road.

The same publication on Facebook gave this photo of my favorite walking area. Lake Tomahawk is a very shallow lake, and is in a bowl of valley between lots of steep hills, and one creek that feeds it. I don't even know if it has a name, maybe one of the North Forks.  Around here there's even a North Fork Right Fork.  I've never seen the Left Fork...but this one probably isn't it.  I'll ask some folks who live below the lake on the creek that flows into the Swannanoa just a few blocks beyond their house.

I'm glad the BM News photographer took this, because that's my path, over there on the left, and the post is the corner of the Lakeview Center building.  The bench and tree are usually on a spit of land with Lake Tomahawk on either side...and you can walk out to it.  A friend who lives overlooking the lake said it had gone back down in a few hours!  I was glad, thinking of that earthen dam that protects all those houses along the creek below the lake.

I wish I had a photo of the one of the most amazing devastations from the storm near Panama City FL.  It was on the weather channel yesterday, of a train that had been blown over...off the tracks all along the length of it...empty cars, no engine.  There were some cars that had been blown right off the wheel trolleys.

I know the personal devastation for homes was also bad, and there are many photos of how awful that looks...just lumber and a few slabs of concrete where homes were.  I hope the occupants were in shelters...and that they are able to return to their lives without too much trauma.

It was hard to read of my friend on Facebook in Tallahassee when she lost power and then was sitting in her closet with her cat listening to the roar of the wind.  I'm glad that she wrote the next day that she survived the storm without damage to her home, but was still without electricity on Thursday. The damage to property and especially trees from so much wind is staggering.

But we didn't suffer from wind.  And I only wanted to post because I wanted to save these photos for my own history.

Swannanoa River

A nice shallow rocky bottomed river.  Where Lulu is walking is the Swannanoa River coming in from our right, and Flat Creek joining it on the left (behind trees). 

And so it will go down the mountains, curving along banks, to join the French Broad River, which flows through mountains to Tennessee, where it joins the river of that name, which joins the Ohio, and then the Mississippi.

It's nice to think that my hand in this water touches water that will flow into the Gulf of Mexico eventually.

Swannanoa River

A reposted photo from last year.
Hiding behind Bi-Lo Grocery on Rt. 9 almost where it crosses I-40...here's this lovely river almost at it's headwaters.  The Swannanoa River.

 Flat Creek runs down from Montreat into it, as well as several other creeks, and then the North Fork of the Swannanoa comes in, and by the time it gets to Asheville, it's still pretty small, as rivers go.  Then it joins the French Broad River which goes rushing over to the Smokies and joins the Tennessee, which eventually joins the Ohio, which goes into the Mississippi.  I've lived near all those rivers except the Ohio.

I love that all these southeastern rivers have their American Indian names still.

Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them.

A.A. Milne (via Eeyore)
Winnie-the-Pooh