Around 1PM July 5, 2013 I decided to go over to the visitors center to see what Humming birds I could get pictures of. I have wanted to do this for a while, but 20 yards is sooooo far to walk but yesterday I manned up and took the plunge.
I took well over 800+ more pictures of humming birds and I will post the better ones. Hummingbirds are too quick to expect the auto focus to work. That and the Canon Rebel T3 has a very wide focus point which I still have not figured out how to work to my advantage yet so I was using manual focus until my hands hurt too much to continue.
It was 93F or so at 11am but by 1pm it dropped to 78F and the wind was almost chilling. We had a large dark cloud pass over that gave us nothing more then some thunder.
However as we was soon to discover, Tucson got drilled with rain, as did Paton’s which is about 1 mile North of us. (But not as much rain as Tucson.)
Around 3PM after I took the 800+ pictures, I came back home to review/edit/upload until it was time to close the gate at 4pm. Matt, the Preserve Manager was at the gate area working on some landscaping and Pauline, Matt and I talked about odds and ends and the recent NBA news until about 415pm when Pauline and I returned home.
I got a text from Matt at 4:23PM “FLOOD!”
It took a second text from Matt to explain to me “Flood” = “Flash Flood!”.
Now we had heard the “wind” in the trees for about 15/20 minutes, it wasn’t until Matt’s text that I realized “there was no wind, that noise was a flash flood”.
DOH! PAY ATTENTION DUMMY!
Pauline and I grabbed our video camera and canon and ran to the “picnic table” which is about 150 yards from us and the closest point the creek is to us.
From 10am to about 12pm I was taking my second hike of the day and I walked along the dry creek bed for about 1/2 a mile, the plants there use to be there were dead “straw” total bone dry. The very spot I was just hiking was now under 4′ of rushing water and about 30′ wide.
Wow. I have never seen such a thing. We didn’t even have a drop of rain.
Pauline, Matt and I along with Matt’s puppy Bindi talked for 30 minutes or so watching the flash flood. In that time it dropped about 2′. Pauline and I walked the entire creek trail and at various points I took the opportunity to clean up some brush with the new rushing “disposal system” we now had.
Matt had explained we want those “dams” of tree’s etc to get as much water as we could for the longest amount of time. It took about 15 minutes of throwing fallen dead branches and logs into the creek to get a section cleaned up once more.
I have to admit, that was fun. So much easier then throwing branches into a truck or chipper.
Pauline and I walked back home and drove the Jeep to Paton’s to see the main drive to and from Patagonia and the water had already receded about 10′ but was still rushing over the street. We sat at Paton’s and talked to some visitors as well with Larry, Paton’s caretaker before we came home, exhausted, bug bitten and starving.
It was a long day.
Enjoy.