Water, Frogs and Snakes

There were turtles too.
What seems like WEEKS ago, but was only 10 days ago, Zane and I went to a Toddlers and Tunes event at our local park . Here are some of the pictures from it, taken w/ my cell phone.

Looking at frogs in a bucket.


Finding a drum beside the buckets of turtles.


touching a snake. he really touched, it, but this picture turned out better.


And the impromptu drum circle w/ fellow beat-sters. Their hands really were flying.


Lastly, below, a pic of Z in front of the flood waters of the North Branch of the Chicago River last Sunday afternoon.

Saturday around 5pm we got a reverse 911 call from the police saying that evacuation locations were at our local police precinct. Now it had rained a lot that day and we'd driver through some water earlier as we'd driven through Lincolnwood and Skokie, but really, evacuation?

Then I started noticing a lot of tow trucks in the parking lot of the elementary school across the street from us. Being the curious cat that I am, coupled w/ Zane in the middle of a very uncharacteristic severe meltdown, we went out to take a walk in the neighborhood.

Following the flashing lights, sirens and tow trucks about three blocks from our house we discovered our neighborhood was very flooded.

We got to see a group of about 15 city workers trying to figure out how to fill sand bags with one shovel. They eventually got their acts together b/c the next day there were many sand bags about.

We were in the restricted area for most of the week while police limited car traffic to allow the heavy equipment to not only put down the sand bags while the water was rising, but get this--front loaders were used and city workers help flooded folks haul the debris of their homes out of flooded basements (and 1st floors) into large trucks that hauled the stuff away.

If only the folks in NOLA had that kind of help early on. Of course Katrina was a lot bigger area than the blocks around the North Branch of the Chicago River....

Travel around town was quite a chore, but we gratefully did not get any flooding. Some of the faulty building of our condo did get some water, but really, when you get 10+ inches in less that 48 hours, 6.5+ of them in 24, a bit of water damage is not unexpected. (the remnants of Hurricane Ike were only the last 1 or 2 inches of water)

Some homes along the river are still mucking out. aprox 350-400 homes were effected. The park we were at a few days earlier was also under water.

This was probably the high point of the water.

Stay dry and happy fall!