flood

friday firesmith – after the flood

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For two and a half years the back part of my property was flooded. One seriously freakish rain event came in on the 12th of April, 2023, and over the next two years, three hurricanes would pass through, giving me a cat, but not giving me my land back.

It is fortunate I didn’t lose a dog, or a cat, during this time because there wasn’t enough dry land out here to dig a grave.

Some things I learned about having flooded property:

It’s cool as hell to kayak around a place you’ve only walked. That gets old pretty quick because having a flooded property means there so much more you cannot do.

Trees die when they’re submerged in water for too long. I lost a pine that was close to one hundred feet high, a Live Oak that had a serious lean to it fell over the first hours of the Flood, and it was nearly two hundred years old, and a good dozen or so trees close to the edge died, too.

The water finally dried up in July of 2025, and I had to scramble to get the fence back up before the dogs realized it was down. The Big Pine, well tall enough to tag the house, got the fence instead, and in that I was content.

Someone asked me if my compost pile was dead, and I hesitated. Dead? Yeah, as it turns out compost piles can drown. Mine did. Also, it takes a while for the engine to start turning again, and it’s finally cranked back up, almost a year after the water left.

But the environment of the back of my property has gone through a change. Many trees died, so there’s a lot more open sky between the branches. That brings in sunlight, and one thing I never truly grasped was this: floodwater, especially if it’s grown pond scum on top of it, is incredibly fertile.

A patch of land in the backyard had never seen floodwaters but it stayed wet for nearly two years. Soft rushes grew there, and a willow tree. I have never had either on my property. Pond birds, wood storks, herons, egrets, and ducks were spotted swimming or wading over the compost pile. The area was far too wet to mow, so now about a quarter of my backyard is still covered in weeds.

Worse, infinitely worse, the dead trees are all falling down now. My compost pile has been a favorite target of Water Oaks breaking apart and falling, but I have plans for these dead logs. They will be cut to serve as a perimeter of the compost pile.

The irony that I will now use more water keeping the compost pile wet, because of the overabundance of sunlight, is not lost on me.

When I first moved out here, twenty-five years ago or so, the back of the property was overgrown with weeds and vines. I hacked away at them, and saplings appeared once I fenced the area in, and released the dogs back there. The dogs scared the deer away, and the saplings grew. The first tree that grew tall enough to house a Cardinal nest died in the flood.

Nature carries on. My brief time here will be erased sooner or later, and all traces of my existence will disappear. Unless one of the trees I saved from vines and deer continues on and spreads its seeds throughout the property.

Oddly, I can accept that, if it is the only thing left of me on this earth.

Take Care,

Mike

Friday FireSmith – I saw a Cat

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I know where I was on August the 25th, 2023, because I have a photo. Not of me, not at all, no. I got a partial photo of a cat. Grey, striped, with a white shoulder, it ran away as I drove down the driveway, and for reasons I cannot explain, I snapped a photo.

I called my neighbors and they, too, saw this cat, but it ran away from them. A stray, a feral, it really didn’t matter at all for nothing small and helpless is going to survive out here. Coyotes, bobcats, owls, hawks, venomous snakes, alligators, foxes, and humans with guns who might think a bullet is a mercy for a stray all live here. Starvation, if it lived, parasites, heat, and a host of stinging insects awaited this animal until something killed it.

            There was no way I could take a cat it. Wrex Wyatt had a dislike for small mammals.

Several days later I looked out of the front door window and there was this cat, walking up my mama’s wheelchair ramp as if it meant to simply walk right through the front door. I opened the door and the cat fled. I was too shocked to get a photo, but I did start putting out food, and the food began to disappear.

            I’ve been hungry. Not just simply wanting to eat, but not having food and not knowing where food was going to come from, or when. Whatever else may be true, no animal I can get food to is going to feel that.

            For reasons I won’t not try to explain at the moment, I started calling this cat, “Aqaba.”

Pronounced Ack-a-baa. I would go out on the porch with the bowl of food and sing out, “Aqaba! Aqaba! Kitty, kitty, kitty!” and put the bowl down.

            A week later, I could see him hiding in the woods near the house and when I called he came out, a little bit, and then stopped.

            Eventually, he made his way into the garden to wait. One day I called him and he came running out of the woods and stopped in the garden, and watched me, and crept a little closer.

            And this was as far as Aqaba would get. I talked to him, sang to him, kept food and water out, but there was a line this kitty was not crossing.

            The last week of August I began setting live traps for Aqaba, but he wanted to part of them at all, and refused to go in. On August the 30th, hurricane Adalia slammed into South Georgia, creating more flooded areas and knocking down trees. The power went out. Somewhere in the woods, Aqaba Thomas, the Cat Unexpected, had either lived or died. I set out food for a couple of days and sang for him. The food was untouched. I waited. There was no sign of Aqaba at all.

Take Care,

Mike

Friday Firesmith – TomAHtoes and Bullfrogs

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(I told you I would ~ MikeCo)

During the wee hours of the night, 12 April 2023, the rain began. The forecast called for hard rain, and they were right. I awoke as soon as it started because the sound of the rain on the roof was loud. I listened for a while, checked the clock, which read just after midnight, and waited for the rain to slack off. It didn’t. For six hours the rain came down in a hurry and we got eleven inches.

The next morning, the aftermath of the storm manifested with a giant Live Oak toppling over, and the driveway being underwater. My backyard flooded to a point I had never seen before. It was incredible in the magnitude of the amount of water.

Things didn’t get better over time.

2023 saw a couple of hurricanes come in close and add more water to the problem, and my garden drowned. 2024 saw even more hurricanes and even more water, and my garden drowned again.

2025 began wet, and a series of weekly rains kept the water level way too high.

March saw the water level down a bit. April has been a dry month, so far, and little by little, the water is receding. A few more feet and I’ll be able to burn what is left ofthe Live Oak that fell back in 2023.

Believe it or not, I had to don some wading boots to look for the water hose in what was once dry land but is now a small lake. I found the hose, fished it out, and watered my garden, which is in pretty much the highest ground on the property. There is just so much rain tomatoes and squash can handle before they die, however.

Over two years’ worth of flooding has brought in different species of both animals and plants. Frogs, of course, moved in from the pond that overflowed into the yard, and with the frogs came those things that feed on frogs. Water snakes, cottonmouths, wood storks, a great blue heron, a green heron, all followed the frogs. Ducks of all sorts, an egret or three, and assorted wading birds all came to visit.

A couple of alligators, small ones, have swam around in what once was where I mowed the back yard.

My compost pile, that turned out enough compost for me to fully stock the garden, is still under a foot of water. My fire pit is under at least four feet of water. And all of this is after the water started going down.

I mowed today, moving into the swamp grass and reeds, creating space to see what’s there and what’s still mud, and opening up the yard a little more for the dogs. I cut two meters wide into the very back, a meter and a half wide near the shed, and about a meter and a half path to the woods for the dogs to run freer. All the assorted grasses were half a meter tall, at least.

Now, with the swamp grass cut back, and not all the way, I can see that if the water recedes a few more feet, the ditch in the back of the yard will still be full, but within its banks. The compost pile will begin to emerge butbe useless for a while. The pond will begin the process of returning to where it has been for the last twenty-five years.

We’ll know this hurricane season is the new normal or if the old one holds sway.

I’d like to have some tomatoes to talk about this year, but I also love to see storks and herons. I love the sound of frogs. Love what you have, says I. The garden or the swamp, each has a draw that is undeniable.

Take Care,

Mike

In all the photos that you see this week, all the area that can be seen was once lawn, or at least mowable. The old shed you see has never been flooded like this before. Oh, and the hose? Got it out without a Kraken attacking me.