A day of rain has saturated the Pinole Creek watershed. Most of it blew in sideways. The day’s doppler radar showed a thick band of red working its way across the state, a sodden transect ending in snow up in the Sierra.
I opened the door early this morning to let the dog out. He caught a glimpse of the weather and turned around without breaking stride, out and back in in one fluid motion. He and Becky and I spent the day indoors, every so often looking out the windows and saying “Wow, it’s really coming down.”
And then it stopped, a bit after the sun set.
A dog walk deferred is better than a dog walk denied. We headed for the creek. Two nights ago it was a thin trickle two feet across. Tonight, at least thirty feet across and probably six deep, dark brown boils shimmered on the surface. Waves slapped off the banks, met in the middle in a long rapid tongue. From where we stood, a kayak would have made it the half mile to the bay in about three minutes, hauled down to the estuary as runoff rushed from saturated hills.
1 comment on "El Rio Pinole"
Chris: we went over your creek on the train on Thursday; a trickle, as you say, but we said hello to it anyway.
The birds all congregated in a tiny area north of our kitchen window yesterday to get out of the murderous wind. I saw a Say’s phoebe, Wilson’s warbler, red-tail, kestrel, robins, many house finches, and lots of white-crowned sparrows uneasily sharing the confined space. It finally stopped raining here around 6:30; we dashed over to the bookstore. We did lose power, though, around 8:00 (a normal occurrence in this kind of wind). I was grateful to have the day off and enjoy being in it; I even gathered some of the black walnuts I’d been meaning to make ink from. They’re simmering on the stove now.