Landslides after Rainy Season

Earlier this week we managed to cross the river and made it to the other side of the property. The main objective of this trip was to observe any damage that happened during the recent rain storm. We were unable to cross the river at the usual spot and had to go more upstream and then scramble up a steep hillside. We walked up the internal road and came across the first sign of destruction at the banana patch. This photo shows the areas that slid and took away part of the trail. Most shocking was what got swept away in the path of mud and rock leading down to the river.

This picture doesn’t capture the full effect of the vegetation that was washed away. We were aware that a spring is in this area and it appears the heavy rains saturated the ground and increased the volume of water in the spring. It will be interesting to see how this area regenerates itself.

We continued the walk toward the big spring and saw a few more small landslides. One of which created a spectacular vista of the river, but I felt too uneasy there to take a picture. As we got closer to the spring a huge rock landslide completely covered the trail. Looking up the hillside we could see that the rock face hill gave way and left a mountain of rocks in its path. The sight of this rocked my nerves. If I was on my own I would have turned back and headed towards the house, but John was determined to see what happened in the spring area.

Meanwhile, we noticed that Spencer was bleeding from his mouth. I could tell by his body movement that he was OK, but the amount of blood dripping and drooling from his mouth was shocking. I managed to get a hold of him and looked in his mouth but couldn’t see where the blood was coming from. His tongue was still there, teeth were there and nothing was obviously cut. I decided based on his overall appearance and energy that this was probably not life threatening. However, the site of the large rock slide and Spencer bleeding was a little too much for me. It took me a moment to calm down before we decided to crawl over the rock slide and see what was beyond.

When we approached the spring area, water was running down the trail which was a sign of change. We got to the area where we usually fill our water bottles to find another slide. We continued up and around the trail but the slide covered the trail that leads to the source of the spring. We could have continued up the road more, but I had enough for one day.

Spencer’s mouth stopped bleeding once we got back to the house and he quit panting from his workout. He was already scheduled to go to the vet the next day for more shots. She examined his mouth and couldn’t find any sign of where the blood came from.

I’m grateful no one was crazy enough to be walking around these areas during the storm. I am also grateful we don’t use this portion of the land as a source of income, such as raising cattle or crops. I have never been this close to nature in action. Needless to say it was disturbing for me to see this type of destruction in the places we walk so often. Nature will take care of herself. The vegetation will grow back, probably faster than I can imagine. Events like this make me pause and slow down and appreciate life even more.