Fireworks at Greenville Country Club on July 1st

Finally uploaded a movie of the fireworks we attended on July 1st. I certainly haven't gotten the hang of taking pictures of fireworks with my iPhone 4, but the video turned out well.



Enjoy!

Overflowing Shellpot Creek video and photos from todays monsoon

For the first time since we have lived in this house, Shellpot Creek lept its banks and flooded portions of the backyard.

The waterfall is an almost flat raging, rushing torrent.

A view of the flooded backyard from an upstairs window.

Just as dramatic was that it couldn't drain fast enough in front of the house.


The creek flows from the cul-de-sac...

...down the street.

Technically, for a short period this afternoon, our house was on an island in the middle of Shellpot creek as the creek flowed down Stoney Creek Lane in front of the house and joined the main branch further upstream, even as it flooded from its usual location in the back of the house.

Here is a video showing the creek first beginning to leave its banks.



Here is a video showing the height of the flooding of the backyard.



There was really no damage except some lost mulch that had just been put down, perhaps some plants were swept away and the regular creek junk left in our yard instead of high in the creek bed. You can see the creek is so high that the waves from the creek just crash across the yard. I also watched as large logs and debris from the creek floated through my yard and under the fence to the neighbors (and hopefully back to the creek so they don't have to deal with it).

It was a dramatic flooding event, but the house suffered no damage whatsoever since it sits high on the lot.

UPDATE: Charts from the the USGS stream gage on Shellpot Creek. This gage is downstream from my house, but since the water at my house, plus some more goes through the gage, it is a useful, official measurement of the creek flow.

The discharge in cubic feet per second. You can see July 13th's morning rain, July 14th's morning rain, and the high peak of the flood recorded in this post. Note that the scale is a log scale, so the peak at 3100 cuft/s at 2:35pm on 7-14-2010 is 50% more than the 2130 cuft/s at 6:45am on 7-13-2010.

The gage height. Gage height is a linear scale.

At least now I know that ~3000 cu ft/ second and a gage height of ~7.5 ft means water in the backyard.

Pictures from Point to Point at Wintherthur

Point to Point, was run at Winterthur yesterday. I got this action shot of the race horse jumping over the jumps. At our jump we saw one rider fly off of his horse when it avoided the jump, while the rider didn't. He appeared to be OK. There was also one hose that completely stopped and refused to jump during one of the races. It was very hot, especially for the horses.

Before the races, I also tried to get some actions shots of the fancy carriages.

Tiny ponies pull a carriage.
More tiny ponies.

There were some larger horses. The outfits that the carriage riders had on appeared historically accurate and ridiculously hot. I doubt folks had blankest on there legs in 90 degree hit at the turn of the century. Or are they there to keep the dirt from the hoofs from flying up onto their clothes?

Large horse pull a carriage.

Tiny cute ponies pull a carriage.

Snow pictures #7 A sneak peek at Shellpot Creek

I know that pictures of a snow covered Shellpot Creek water fall are very common this year, but it is amazing how much snow is piled on these rocks. This looks more like some snowy mountain stream, than a creek in Delaware.

Upstream from the waterfall.

Top of the water fall.

The waterfall.


Base of the water fall.


Downstream of the waterfall.

Snow pictures #6 The trees, the trees.

Except that the heavy snow is potentially breaking all of them, the snow sticking to the trees has turned the world into a magical snow streaked wonderland. I have tried to capture some of the views, but it is more spectacular to stand under these trees or look across a clump of them, all painted white.

Snow pictures #5 second snow!

This was the view looking from Stoney Creek Lane up Baynard towards Marsh Road at 8am this morning.

This is the view looking up Baynard across the Shellpot Creek bridge towards Shipley Rd. It's all uphill from Stoney Creek lane.


Stoney Creek lane itself (a cul-de-sac with four houses) looks just as good.


Obscured road sign.


Our house is covered.

I am the mighty snow conqueror!

I am the mighty snow conqueror, wielding my shovel of power to clear driveways and raise mountains.

Snow pictures #4 - This driveway is clean!

Remember in Poltergeist when they rescue Carol Ann from the other world and at the end of it the short exorcist/medium lady says, "This house is clean"?

This driveway is clean.

Last night I cleared just enough snow to get my car out for church today. We were one of the few families there this morning.

Today I finished the rest so that both cars can get out of the driveway. Why take a picture? Because that is a lot of snow and it never took me two several hour days of shoveling to clear this driveway before.

Cleared driveway end, and no "plowed-in" portion!

Cleared walkway.

This cleared walkway goes around the house next to the creek. I stopped at the end there. I just wanted to be able to see the creek if I wanted.


Beautiful afternoon sun illuminates the snow and the Shellpot Creek.

Snow pictures #3 with more measurements 20 to 24 inches!

The measurements in the pictures below might not reflect the "official" amount of snow that fell yesterday, but they certainly represent the "official" amount of snow I had to shovel. For the purposes of my back they are the measurements that count.



20.5 inches at the top of the driveway.


...down to 18.5 in the middle...

...and back up to 24 inches at the end of the driveway.

Snow pictures #2 with measurement

The snow was about 15 inches on the front walk at about 10am. This measurement could be low or high depending on the drifting either into or away from the spot. As to the practical application, it still means that 15 inches of snow have to be shoveled!



Lynn shoveling. You can clearly see the height of the snow in that cleared area at the turn in the walkway.

Snow day pictures, snow pillows, snow hammock, snow chairs, snow table

Remember that big snow we had on December 19th? This is more.

Snow hammock.

Snow chairs redux (the last time.)

Snow table







Snowy creek.