Any time I go somewhere, I pass the river and what was, pre-Helene, a lovely meadow, tended by an absentee landlord who used what was the land across the road from the old home place to pasture his fat black steers.
Helene wiped out many of the trees at water's edge and deposited a thick layer of sand over most of the pasture. It was a sad sight.
But in the past month, wonderful progress has been made. Heavy equipment has been hard at work. The broken trees have been removed, the trunks salvaged for firewood and the rest shoved into a huge pile and burned, then buried. Drainage ditches have been dug, lined with gravel, and drains installed. And much of the choking sand has been pushed into a sort of berm along the river. Perhaps with enough vegetation on it, it will divert the next flood.I look forward to see grass growing here again and fat black steers grazing.
