Que Sara Sara,What Will Be, Will Be

It is another hot one today. The actual temp is up to 88 and the dewpoint 76  so they say it feels like 100. Duh!  I don't need to know that.  But I'm thankful that it is not raining at present and it is pleasantly breezy.  I'm also thankful for air conditioning.  But less you think I have spent all day in the AC think again.  I went to the gym and worked out for an hour plus, came home and changed into my gardening clothes.  I picked up a lot of big sticks from the back yard and the shade bed under the trees, then raked the tree seeds as best I could.  I had a 5 gal pail stuffed full of them.  Then I spread 8 bags of red cedar mulch in the shade bed around trees and plants and finally put out the lawn ornaments.  It really looks nice.

I am so thankful that I live on high ground.  The recent heavy rains are threatening serious flooding in my area, and I wouldn't want to live in the affected neighborhoods.  The Iowa River is damned by an Army Corp of Engineers project to form the Coralville Lake.  It catches the water flowing downstream and they can control how much to let out through flood gates, but with record rains they cannot let it out fast enough and some areas below the dam are already starting to flood.  The level of the lake is getting close enough to the top of the spillway that another heavy rain could send it over the spillway and then there would be no control of water going downstream.  We saw that situation in 1993 when disasterous flooding occurred between July and September.  According to the reports from the Corps,in 1993, about 1.67 "trillion" gallons of water flowed through the Coralville Dam from March to October -- 11 times the amount of water the Coralville Lake up to the spillway can hold. The water at the foot of the hill a half block from my home was chest deep on adult men. Many roads were closed. I hope to never see that again.  Coralville has taken some big steps in controlling the backing up of flood waters from the Iowa River into it's creeks and the streets and areas nearby but these measures have never been tested.  I have a feeling this coming week will put them to the test.

Coming on the heels of heavy damage to some parts of the state from EF5 tornadoes, Iowans are being called on to step up and help one another, something we do well in this state.  So I'm thankful to live where I do and I guess Que Sara Sara is my frame of mind.