Shit hits fan - the rant.

This is the Cheneaux Dam, on the Ottawa river, just downstream from us. Believe it or not, there is only one gate open, the one in the background, at the far end of the bridge. This is not a normal spring.

Up and down the Ottawa river - and all its tributaries - the twice as much as normal snowfall of the past winter is swelling rivers to unprecedented levels. Two years ago, we had a "100 year" flood. This is much, much worse.



10,000 people, so far, have been unable to save their homes. Thousands (and thousands) more are still trying. Sandbags, berms, neighbours and soldiers and strangers shoulder to shoulder, for 2 weeks now, trying, desperately .. yet the snowmelt from the hills to the north keeps coming, rain keeps falling and high spring winds are pushing the water over everything that humans can build.

The Ottawa river is 600 miles long, and the St Lawrence, the next major river, is affected as well. There are dozens of villages and several major cities along the way, including Ottawa - the capital - and Montreal. Those cities are closing bridges and fortifying their water treatment plants, and all along the way highways are washing out, detours in effect. Major transportation routes are affected and supplies of groceries and even gasoline are at risk.

It's an extended, relentless disaster.

This isn't just about privileged people who built their dream homes in risky areas, this is about rivers changing their courses, streams turning into lakes, areas that have never flooded before are under water. It's affecting millions of people.

And yet my friends, have you heard about this on the news? No?

I wonder why not.

I really do.

In our little village, the little creek, a lazy brown winding thing that's normally about 50 ft wide is now running backwards as the big river spreads out and up it, all that water literally swallowing up an entire neighbourhood.

As it spreads out, it's filling the marshland behind and below our little house. We're about 50ft up, on a sandy bluff, so we're "safe" ..

But whereas normally at this time of year I'd be watching the golden marsh grasses turn green, listening to singing frogs at night and redwing blackbirds by day, this year I'm watching the marshlands turn blue. Water reflecting sky, the river itself, drowning the tall grasses and cattails along the way, is 50ft closer as of yesterday afternoon than we've ever seen it. There are army helicopters in the sky .. and vultures. I've never seen so many vultures before.

The frogs have gone silent.

I don't know whether that's because the little buggers have drowned (can frogs drown?) or it's because of the chill in the air. Let's hope it's the latter. And the deer - oh the poor things - we're seeing them stumbling (literally) out of the forests, emaciated from a hard winter, only to find their usual meadows of spring grasses are now lakes.

But as I said, we're "safe" here.

In our yard two brave crocuses have appeared for me to fall down on my knees to worship. The buds on the currant bush are fat, the rhubarb is pushing up, a couple of dandelions are unfurling. It's so cold - both from the weird weather and the influence of that massive river that still holds some slushy ice - that everything in the garden is a little behind.

As to the wilderness, all bets are off. Who knows what will survive  the inundation; what, if anything, will be plentiful enough to gather or come to think of it, remain unpolluted. That river water is anything but clean, there will be agro-chemical residues, fuel, and who knows what else from swamped homes, business and farms in that water and the silt it leaves behind. The damage left by a flood is long lasting.

So is this why I've brought in so many "wild" plants, or encouraged the volunteers to grow where I can reach them? I didn't know this was why when I began the project, I just had a hunch, a sort of "you never know" sense that having everything I use nearby, instead of relying solely on the wild, might be a good idea.

So now my wild-ish garden is a necessity, not a luxury or a hobby.

But if that fucking river gets any closer, it will erode the sandy bluff we sit on, the trees that hold it together will fall, and the bluff will collapse. That probably won't happen this year, but if there is one thing we've learned from the flood two years ago, it's that the changes wrought by water are permanent. Every succeeding flood continues the work of the last.

Climate change ain't no hoax, my friends, it's real and it's planet wide and it seems to be speeding up. Change is the name of the game, it's the nature of our planet. Whether or not this current phase is influenced by humans is a topic I refuse to touch. But the fact is that it's happening - and the fact is also that most of these changes don't make it into the news cycle.

So the slow moving disasters just don't reach the awareness of the average Joe and Jo-Ann, even though it's Joe and Jo-Ann - you and me - who most need to know.

What can you do to be ready for whatever change comes your way? Take it from me - and the millions around me - these changes can come like a thief in the night. Are you truly safe where you live now? That's what the people around me thought too. You'd think being a mile from the nearest river means a flood would leave you unaffected, right? Well guess what ..

If you're not safe, where could you move to that you would be? That cabin on a hill in the woods that you dream about - what would you do in case of a forest fire? Did you know that fires travel UP hills? Did you know that tornadoes now follow highways?

I worry, and I feel so sorry, for people who don't know these basic facts about the elements, just as I worry and feel sorry for people who don't know that the dandelions they're poisoning are the one thing they need most to keep their livers healthy. The ignorance - through no fault of their own I suppose - of most people is just stunning.

Educate yourselves, please. Examine your lives for vulnerabilities.

And don't listen to stupid youtube preppers who tell you that you can just merrily live off the land if the shit hits the fan. The land will be fucked up too. You can't eat a sick, starving deer and you can't depend on nuts and berries when the land is flooded or burned. You can't drink - or purify - water contaminated with diesel fuel.

You are not safe, you're human and vulnerable to more dangers than you might have thought. Nature is bigger than we are, by far. But she has endowed us all with big, clever brains.

So let's use them!