The banks of the Assiniboine

These photos were taken on Sunday- they're pictures of land that is used as plot land by the Brandon Agriculture Research Station. The Station land sits on the edge of the river- the row of spruce trees is where their main drive is- the row of trees that look seriously insignificant are huge trees that line Grand Valley road- which runs east west. In the second photo you can see the line of sandbags that is holding the water back from the shopping centre and houses across the road. There isn't a lot of scale in these photos- but rest assured that the river is stretching its banks, to say the least.

There's a lot of issues with this flood- stuff I hadn't thought about before when I heard of this sort of thing happening elsewhere so here's some food for thought: Besides the obvious concerns of evacuations and housing, and closed stores- the roads that are being used as detours are getting a lot of traffic- and for the most part these are secondary roads- which means gravel around these parts. These roads don't take well to increased volume and increased moisture- and there are no excess crews of people to fix them- so the roads are an added hazard in my view.

There's also the food supply to consider- farm land that is being flooded is not likely to produce crops this year. I know it can seem like a stretch to connect cropland with the actual food on our table- (but the fact is it is food- and that's another post- probably)but the brand of veggies that is in the store in Manitoba- peak of the market- is grown in Manitoba- by producers in the flood zone- and that's going to affect our food prices directly. I hate to sound like a downer- but our food prices are only going to get higher out of all this- If there ever was a year to plant veggies where your flowers are- this is it.

And I haven't even mentioned the gas prices- people are sitting in traffic and taking detours- sometimes over ten miles out of their way, it's horrible and it's expensive for everyone- city crews fixing dikes and regular people just trying to keep on living life.

Okay there it is- the downer post for the week-keep hoping for dry weather.