Anyone who reads this blog entry is going to know that flooding on the Red River has been a major news item around the world the past few days. And living on the North Dakota side of the river, I can tell you, it's an all-out blitz to save our largest city, Fargo.

As I searched the Internet news agencies this morning, as well as the local newspapers, the flood in Fargo was one of the top stories in Toronto, London, Tampa, New York and even made Al Jazeera news, a TV network in Doha, Qatar.

Fortunately, there hasn't been any loss of life yet. CNN reported two deaths, but it must be erroneous because none of the North Dakota media are reporting it. I noticed another big faux pas in CBS news coverage of the flood. Brian Gumbel was interviewing some university basketball players who were helping sandbag. As the coach talked, the video began rolling. The only problem was, the video was showing flooded Grand Forks from 1997 and not Fargo now although the Fargo flooding was implied during the segment.

Fargo will get through this. So will Grand Forks and the rest of the smaller communities along the Red River. That is how North Dakota residents react to disaster. Maybe that is one of the reasons we like living here so much.

But the flood reminds us of how powerful nature can be. With one-third of our state under an indefinite flood warning, we can only watch in awe as March is certainly going out like a lion.

 Unfortunately, April may bring the same wrath. The northern tier of the state is yet to thaw and with unprecedented amounts of snow this year, the Des Lacs River, which runs next to our farm from Saskatchewan, could flood the village we live in, Carpio. We'll watch it closely and hope the melt is slow and gradual.

In the seven years Ilene and I have lived here, March 2004 was the only time we had flooding. And that was only because there was an ice jam on the river. We have a lot more snow this year, in fact, part of my garlic patch has 2 feet of snow on it as I write this blog entry March 29.

May nature be kind to us as spring unfolds here along the international boundary.