It has been an eventful weekend, to say the least! On Saturday, Ann Lindsay and her full workshop of students arrived at our inn, the Greenville Arms 1889 Inn, to enjoy 3 days of a studio watercolor workshop — and enjoy it they did, even though Irene, “Ms Tropical Storm”, arrived on Sunday!
Our little creek that runs through the property became a torrent, overflowing its banks and covering half the parking lot with water.
We had everyone who had parked on that side move their cars to the town hall parking lot that is next to us just to be safe, although the water never was more than about 4 to 6 inches.
Here is one of our bridges that crosses over our normally mild mannered creek!
But a bit of water and wind can’t keep a good watercolorist down! Ann Lindsay and the group kept warm and dry in the Carriage House studio. We had electricity all through the storm except for about 3 hours in the middle of the day.
Since the creek was preventing anyone from venturing outside the studio, Mark and I (none of our staff were able to make it to work that day – not surprising) made all the lunches and cookies for the class and then drove (thank goodness we have 4-wheel drive) around to our access road that brings us in on the Carriage House side of the creek, and then carried in the boxes of lunches to the studio, wading through about 1 foot of slowly moving water. We also brought them coffee and carrot cake!
Around 3 pm, the heavy rain stopped and the water immediately started to recede so that by 5 pm the creek was running below the bridges and the parking lot was clear of water.
The next morning the sun came out and you would never have known anything had gone amiss! Just look at this innocent looking little creek as it appeared on Monday morning.
Amazingly, the pool stayed crystal clear and bright blue through the whole thing, even though most of the lawn area you see in this picture was covered with flowing water during the storm.
This back lawn was also covered with flowing water. You can see the few tree branches that were carried on the lawn from the water.
The larger of our two bridges took the brunt of the force of the water and the pounding of the debris that was carried down the creek. The railing was broken by some rather large tree limbs, but the bridge held fast and strong. The railing was fixed yesterday and the structure of the bridge checked out fine.
But meanwhile, back in the studio — everyone was enjoying their time with Ann Lindsay!
All-in-all it was a wonderful workshop with a great instructor and a great bunch of people, one we’d love to repeat — just without the weather excitement!
