. . . of a river. As we do so live. The river, and G’s penchant for fly fishing, drove our purchase of this place. We were young, then – middle twenties – and didn’t stop to notice that the upper banks of the river were higher than was the ground we intended to build our place on—the place in which we intended to house our babies, our business, our treasures over the years. Lower than the river – did I mention that? But we didn’t notice.
Our river is a little unusual. We’re a high desert valley, so this river is fed by mountain streams – freezing cold and rambunctious. Those of you who’ve crossed the Mississippi or even the Missouri would laugh your heads off that we don’t just call this thing a creek. But when it’s in high flow after a good winter, the river, while it’s only maybe thirty or so feet across, runs about seven feet deep – and so fast that even at two feet, you can’t stand against the current.
I’ll have to put up pictures of the almost flood years. So close. We came so close. Yeah, I’ll tell that story soon.
But this is just about last week.
Our kids didn’t use the river much—I think mostly we forgot it was there, unless it was in the summer when the water users shut the water nearly down at the dam for the sake of a summer’s worth of irrigation. That’s when the carp used to come up – thousands of them – I think to spawn and die. There is nothing that charming about carp (as opposed to, say, salmon), especially when they are dead (but then, I wouldn’t want a back yard full of dead salmon either).
But sometimes, when it was hot (and the carp were gone), the kids would go down into the shallow river bed where the water ran clear and cold and they’d play there. They’d make dams or float around. (I’d keep an eye on the water level, just in case they let more water out up on the mountain – a sudden rise of a foot or so could have been catastrophic, even for good kid swimmers.) One winter, it was cold enough, they got a tiny bit of ice skating in. So their memories of the place are a little bit magical.
And we have ibis and heron and eagles, mink and raccoons and beavers living along the water. Ducks that used to come into the yard. White bass and brown trout (when there’s not a drought). Western Tanagers, banana wrens, red winged black birds, yellow headed ones, too. I’ve have to ask Reed, down the street, for more names of birds. Or Chaz or Gin of course. Not the flashy tropical birds you have in some places, but interesting colors and beautiful calls. We have bird fights in our canopy all the time. And sometimes, if you camp out in the yard at night, you get dive bombed.
Scooter’s first time in the river. You can see that the water is shallow and clear. Tons of algae growing on the rocks.
Note that the wave is slightly belied by the look on Scooter’s face. Being down there in the green bowl that is the river bed – surrounded by all that busy water. Strange.
Much better over at the side. With a stick. Light follows this river bed. I’ve written about that before. When the yard is dark, the river behind it still holds the mass of flowing light. The light at evening moves up the valley, against the flow of the water.
Cam looks lost in thought. Scooter has found something.
It used to be that when G went into the river to fish, Piper and Skye would sit here on the deck, fretting and wringing their paws and finally howling like the world was coming to an end. I’d say to them, “Think of Lassie. Look at G – has he fallen down a well? Is he trapped in a cave? And when that finally happens, how will I know he’s in real danger if you’re carrying on like this over a bunch of hiding fish?”
Tucker is not worried. Not in the least. In fact, in the following days, this dog escaped into the river FOUR flipping times. NEVER give them a taste of temptation before they’re young enough to think it through. Imagine me running through the neighborhood, jumping neighbors’ fences screaming Tucker’s name (interspersed with dire threats). When I found him he said, “Have I fallen down a well?”
Stupid dog.
This sky also hangs over areas that do not have a river flowing through them.
I love the way the yard gets dark, but the sea above is still lit.
And now comes the very interesting part of living on a river. (Especially one that has a public path on the far side of it. And other neighborhoods.) A few years back, just about this time of year, we were having a barbecue down the street when we noticed smoke – that wasn’t ours.
We went to the back fence and, remembering we’d just been hearing fireworks back there (in our state, we have this made up holiday – Pioneer Day – commemorating the day the LDS pioneers came limping out of Emigration Canyon – I think that’s the right canyon – with their covered wagons and oxen and everything they owned, freshly hauled across the entire continent over a period of long, arduous, impossible months. Why the legislature thought it was a swell idea to make fireworks legal for this holiday puzzles me. I don’t think any of those pioneers were chinese, actually. And if the pioneers had set off fireworks, excited as they were to be on level ground, the whole valley full of dry prairie grass would have gone off like a bomb)—remembering this, as I say, we saw that the opposite bank had caught fire – seriously caught. So we called, and they came and put it out, and it was a very exciting afternoon.
This year, we were finally settling down to watch a Friday Night Family Movie (three people had already dropped by during dinner. Hot dinner. Purchased at great expense hot dinner-), when somebody knocked at the door. It turned out to be somebody we love – Chel from across the street – who had dropped by just to tell us that maybe our garage was on fire.
So we put things on pause. Or Murphy did. And then G. Neither of whom bothered to tell us girls what was going on. And they all took off across the lawn. On my knees, peering out of the window behind the couch, I noticed that the yard was really, really hazy. But sometimes it’s like that in the evening – especially if the mountains are burning, which they tend to do at this time of year. Finally, we went to check things out .
It wasn’t the garage. It was the bank right across the river. The bank overhung by trees. Some of them long dead remnants.
Chaz and Chel, standing at the back fence.
One thing about smoke – it makes nice with slanting light.
Cough, cough. Too much foliage for us to see anything, really. That Russian Olive is across the river, but hangs over the water and almost touches our bank. By this time, the men were way out back, and we could hear sirens, so we thought somebody had already called. In fact, somebody told me M had called (since he’s never parted from his phone and only has to say, “Fire department emergency” into it to get it to call). So this is all the flame I could catch from my yard.
The girls, succumbing to the smoke.
Did anyone order a visitation of angels?
Finally, the guys could see that the flames were actually burning the trunks of things, so they grabbed buckets and ran down into the river—fully dressed.
Don’t ask Chaz why she was doing this. I made her. I liked what happened to the light when she stirred it up. The photo doesn’t do the moment justice. It looks like she’s ready to give a signal.
But the men-in-olive-and-yellow were already there and spent a nice half hour dousing the bank with who knows what. Something that bubbled, anyway.
Weird. Like blood on the water. But really? Just the emergency lights.
After a final gasping whoomph of smoke, it was over.
And, you know, really—I think we just need to think up a better excuse to get together with our friends in the back yard.
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