The vineyard on the night of the flood. You can faintly see the tip of a 6' metal t-post in the center of the picture, marking the corner of the nursery area.
The tractor was fortuitously left on the highest point in the vineyard the day of the flood.
The morning after the flood.
The entrance to the vineyard. The water is up to the level of the road.
The view out over the vineyard from county 103. There are 5' bamboo posts under the water.
By day 3, the water had receded enough to see the bamboo posts and the grow-tubes.
Bonita & Blake out standing in their field.
The vines seem to still be green, some are even still growing. We'll have to see what survives.
The area closest to the river got slammed with sand and silt. About 20 or so LaCrescent vines seem to be hopelessly buried in mud.
Day 4, the water is only an inch or two in puddles around the field.
A view of the 3-1/2 acre vineyard on day 4. The water has receded.
After one week, all of the water is gone and 90% of the field is dried up.
This is an example of the condition of the vines after 1 week. Most of the existing leaves are shriveling up and falling off and new leaves are appearing.
On this vine, it appears as though a fair number of the existing leaves may survive the flood.
Another example of a vine that lost all of its leaves but is attempting to start over.
Example vine after 45 days. Poking out of the top of the grow tube and looking very healthy.
Example vine after 45 days where the grow tube had been removed or washed away.
This is an example of one of the vines that I thought was lost in the flood. A month and a half after the flood, the roots are pushing up new growth.
Another good example of the vine growth in the 45 days since the flood.
The spring 100-year flood of 2004 was only outdone but the fall 100-year flood of 2004. Here are the latest pictures as of 9/20/2004. Once again it appears that the vines will survive the bath without significant damage. The only real problem that we have noticed is that many of our bamboo stakes are rotting and breaking off at the ground. We will be looking at a more stable solution in the future. By our calculations, we are now safe from water concerns for 200 years.
We received 12 inches of rain in one evening and the water backed up into our vineyard once again.
You can see my Ford 8N sitting in the middle of the lake. This is after about 24 hours and the water had dropped down low enough to see it.
This picture shows the water heading back into the river. It rose more than 12 feet in a few hours. At 3AM we were still trying to get the tractor out of the field, but the lightning and rising water convinced us to head for shelter. Within 3 hours, the field was under six feet of water again. A local resident told us that he had never seen it this bad in 46 years and we got it twice in one year.
My tractor reapearing from the flood waters.