February 5 - Ice Breakup

Okay so I'm finally getting around to updating the blog again. I am going to just jump ahead, so that y'all are more updated in recent happenings. This post is still a little bit behind, but it sure was a big deal around here. This winter was very unusual for this area, and was very cold. The snow pack was much larger, and the river was totally iced over super thick. In fact Zach had walked out on it the day it all broke up and it held him. Anyway, our horse pen is on high ground, but it's still near the river so we could bring water up for them. On a Sunday morning, Zach was down there doing chores and he went down to the river to get water. He chopped through the ice and everything looked totally normal. Then he headed back over to the pen. He said he heard what sounded like a gunshot, which at that time of year isn't all that unusual. While he was in the horse pen pouring water, all of a sudden the ground got really mushy and then he could visibly see the water rise under his feet. He was just getting ready to move animals, when it went down again. He called home and we all came down to see the river ice move down.

It lasted for about an hour, the river rose to an amazing height. Under the bridge, which usually is ankle deep in the summer, the water had raised to the height of over 7' high.

  Many of the chunks were massive, some as big as cars. When the water receded it left a wall of ice chunks high up in both banks of the river.
It was amazing to get to watch the power of this river in action!