Backyard Kayaking

 

During our generous New Mexico summer monsoon season this year, my friend Barb invited me over to kayak in her backyard. Her property was a part of a large ranch where they grew pinto beans, so the ranch owners had built natural water tanks into the ground to cache rain water so they could irrigate their bean fields.

One of these water tanks is located on the back of my friend Barb’s property, and this year, due to our generous monsoon rains, hers filled up with water, deep and wide enough to enjoy some backyard kayaking.

 

Barb’s husband Barry took some of these photos of us while we were kayaking in the pond. Barb and Barry were once the managers/founders of The Lucky 13 Donkey Rescue. Now they just own 2 personal donkeys, along with 2 mules and a horse, and a small pack of Boxers.

 

Kayaking with donkeys!

 

The equines were all very curious about the kayaks.

Barb gave a ride to one of her Boxers.

It was a lot of fun to watch the reaction of the equines to the kayaks and the dog in the kayak.

Just hanging out…..

 

Their mule, Jacob, tried to haul Barb’s kayak back onto shore using the handhold rope.

See the fence out in front of my kayak? That’s the fence between Barb and her neighbor. As you can see it is underneath the water and we could kayak right over the fence and into her neighbor’s yard.

Barb and I had a fun time racing one another, playing beach ball hockey and just relaxing on the water.

Barb’s beautiful mare Alex is a seahorse and loves water. She often swims in this pond, when it’s not as deep as it was during the monsoon season. The middle of the pond was over 10 feet deep!

I was thrilled to be in a kayak on the water. Who knew I’d be able to go kayaking just 10 minutes from my house…in my friend’s backyard?!

The sky grew dark and we had a few sprinkles while we were out there on the pond, but we were able to enjoy about an hour and a half of kayaking, before another thunder storm moved in and dumped more rain.

 

This was definitely one of the highlights of my summer!

Mighty Monsoon!!

 

 

Last night our mountain valley experienced a Mighty Monsoon!

We’ve not seen a monsoon like this here for 8 years! The rain fell in buckets, flooding culverts, and overflowing arroyos into the roads. It washed away large amounts of soil and loose plant material which clogged the culverts, causing more flooding.

This is the only road into and out of our neighborhood. (And yes, I’m wearing PJs! lol!)

 

After the storm, some of my neighbors braved the flooded road.

A video I took last night of our neighborhood arroyos filled with fast flowing water.

I have never seen this little arroyo filled with this much water before last night.

 

Because of the cold rain and the hail, the water was freezing cold! I thought I’d go out in flips flops to play in the water. Brrr! I need to buy some Wellies!

 

Well, it appears one of my neighbors lives in a flood zone! Who knew! We have never seen her yard flooded like this, and the little arroyo has never had more than a trickle of water in it.

This is my neighbor Val of Fantastyk Voyage Blog’s property. I’ve never seen the water running that fast and deep in this arroyo. She uses the arroyo on the left as a road to her barn. She would have required a raft or canoe to forge down there last night. It might have been fun!

The water ran across Val’s property carrying soil and silt and vegetation, which clogged the culvert and caused water to overflow across the road and down into another neighbor’s driveway.

The water rushed down their driveway and split into two rivers in front of their garage, creating a moat around their house.

This is the left side of their house……the water on the left is an arroyo with a culvert. But the water moat around their house came from the blocked culvert and overflowing arroyo across the road.

The moat around my neighbor’s house. They were out this morning shoveling mud and water out of their garage and off their driveway.

Here’s a video I took of the flooding at their house.

My daughter was pretty shocked at the amount of water overflowing out of the arroyos onto the road.

We had a waterfall running down our rock wall in our backyard. That’s something we’ve never seen before!

And we had hail!

And the hail brought much cooler temps. It went from 89F degrees down to 56F degrees in less than an hour!

 

Our side yard and back patio flooded, too.

My neighbors weren’t the only ones that had a moat form around their house. Thankfully, my chicken coop sits on higher ground, so just like my neighbors, my chickens didn’t  float away.

That’ll Slow ‘em Down!

 

If you read my last post you know I was griping about the speed demon motorists racing down the county road beside our neighborhood.

Well today I got even, thanks to Mother Nature.

(These photos I took from my bedroom balcony using my camera’s zoom)

We had a doozy of a summer monsoon today. The biggest monsoon storm we’ve had since living here the past 3 years. It caused flash flooding of roads,

(The main road through our neighborhood, taken from my bedroom balcony)

Flooded arenas, yards and fields,

(Photo of our chicken coop beside our house) 

Flooded our culverts,

(See that silvery thing, almost in the center of the picture. It’s sticking up through the water. That’s the top piece of metal pipe that carries overflow water out of our neighborhood)

Caused fast flowing rivers to rush down our hills,

(This is our little dirt road that goes up to our barn)

And lasted for over two hours.

This isn’t typical for most New Mexico summer storms. They usually only last 20 minutes to an hour and then move on, leaving behind cooler temperatures, fresh sage scented air, and sunny skies.

This was truly a gully washer!

I love watching storms. It can be so thrilling with all the thunder, lightning and pounding rain. But our land, plants and animals would much rather have a slow, calm, and steady rain. When the rain falls too hard and fast, the earth can't even soak it up. It just runs off as quick as it falls.

(Apache and Bella insisted on standing out in the rain under a tree the entire time. My neighbor friend, Val’s horses were much smarter and ran into her barn to escape the pelting rain. The mailbox is part of my CTR Obstacle Course.)

This type of powerful rain washes away the soil.

Filling culverts, rivers and ponds full of sediment.

(Our Pond…..poor fish almost got washed away. Photo was taken from my bedroom balcony. The metal is for shade. Yes, the weeds have kind of taken over this summer. It’s difficult to keep up with ‘em)

Small animals and snakes are washed out or drowned inside their homes when water gushes into their holes.

(This was taken from the loft balcony. The photo is of our little grassy backyard where I sometimes hand-graze Apache)

 

I really have a hard time going to the barn after a heavy monsoon storm like this, too. Our steep hill can be treacherous slipping and sliding in the greasy, slimy clay mix soil.

I can use my trekking poles to help, but I’m considering buying some of those spiked crampons that ice climbing mountaineers use. The spikes can be strapped to your shoes to help give you better grip through slippery ice as well as mud.

(My feet sloshing around in a flooded area beside our house. That’s mud splattered on my legs, not hair. lol!)

Anyway, my kidlets and I were quite entertained to see how well the flooded county road slowed down even the speediest drivers. Several times we’d see a driver barreling down the road, and have to come to a complete stop as he eyed the water covered road ahead of him.

A flooded road makes a fine natural speed bump, don’t you agree?