Always understood Wonder Hollow to be a soil course, a place where the mountain’s old and crumbling footings hold loosely: clay, rock, rubble, roots. With enough rain, the ground softens to mud. Add even more rain, the mud pushes back and water surfaces. Multiply by the slopes and angles, and, well, I guess the equation is water makes way and a soil course is just a relatively drier version of a water course. TropSto Helene made its way inland overnight. By now, noontime on Friday, its outspun ribbons are with wind and spray lashing at SW Virginia and lots of other places not especially well landscaped for giving water anyplace to go. The mood here is medium suspenseful; every little while wondering, is this the worst of it?

Lost power at home around mid-morning when I was making way to campus for office hours and figuring I could get a few things done here in Blacksburg. Raincoat, overshoes, umbrella. The Appalachian Power notification said the estimated restoration time was Sunday night at 11 p.m., but once I checked the map and saw we were part of a 1000+ outage, the scale gave me hope, and the power was restored within two hours.

A. took a few photos of the holler-turned-river, the highest water we have seen in these three years. The four pullets had to be moved, as the chicken tractor happened to be parked in the middle yard as the waterway formed. Wisely they’d taken to their coop, which is I guess 30 inches off the ground, so while it was alarming, no lasting harm came of it.

The one lasting harm of the day, so far, is that Helene toppled the century-plus oak at the back of the holler, near the phone of the wind. It was massive, healthy, a leaning elder and a friend back there, its branches patting me on the shoulder when I mowed, else giving shade to deer who often gathered under it. Can’t come up with much more to say about it, so witness it, sit quiet in that witnessing, rehearsing its wonder so as not to forget it too quickly. In this era of intensifying weather, what?, is AI gonna plant a new one, flex its might and set it vertical again, restore its roothold? Right, quiet, witnessing.

And otherwise safe, if soaked.