April 25, 2011

4:00 a.m.
Knock - knock
Knock - knock
Bam - bam - knock - knock - bam - bam
It's gotta be a bat - the scratching...the gnawing...Whatever it is - the thing is consistent on the time it wakes Carlo and how he reacts - then how I react - ahhhh, the cycle continues! At least this time I didn't think someone was at the door!!! And let's hope he/it/they stay OUT of the inside of the cabin and waits between the walls - at least until we can locate and displace him/it/them!

Our departure ritual beings when we wake up. Today though, the propane company arrived at 8:00 a.m. to move the tank. After sinking the truck a good 10" in the wet ground along the side of the driveway, Carlo and the driver decided a visit on another day (when the ground is more solid) would be the best option. "Bye-bye driver, thanks for sinking, I mean, stopping by!"



Carlo then moved into his every popular McGuyver mode and tethered the tank - you never know, there could be another flood. (ring ring) "Hello Noah, I'd like to order an ark."

Cleaning the crawl space will need to wait for a warmer day and of course, it'll be there waiting to greet us along with our replanted post with welcome sign!

On our drive home I captured a photo of the remnants of "the barn", now fallen! Its falling was sad to see. I'm not sure when it fell, but I'm sure the weather was this old barns last straw! I love old barns. So looks like I gotta set my sights on a new old barn and I think I found one!!!

April 24, 2011

At 4:00 a.m. I awoke to someone pounding at the door - okay, no one at the door but Carlo was pounding on the wall - bad dream? Perhaps! Nope, not a bad dream. He was pounding on the wall, maybe in a slight retaliation to the crawling, gnawing noises from within the wall that originally wakened him. Whatever was there wasn't interested in his game of knock-knock and even after checking outside, Carlo never did find out who was there! Then for the next hour or so I thought I heard things slamming into the side of the cabin. WTF I thought all the wildlife died in the flood other than concrete creature and the five albino chipmunks - and I was certain they were all fast asleep!

As if off on an Easter egg hunt, Carlo donned his Easter boots and armed himself with a yellow McGuyver rope and knife (also of a McGuyver style) in his effort to play "After Flood Scavenger Hunt"! His list included our benches and anything else that was ours. Along the way he found a blue ball (add this to the other toys - a green horseshoe and a golf ball) and pounded our property marker into the ground from being upset by all the drifting timbers. He crossed the "new pond" and disappeared into the woods. Before he set off, he gave me instructions on how long to wait before calling an SOS, I thought of looking for a number to call when he emerged from the woods with the bench in tow! He dragged it to a tree in the center of the property and then returned to the same wooded area and from afar I could only be giddy with excitement that the other bench would soon emerge from the same timber piled resting spot. Once both benches were out, the McGuyver procedure was in full force, and were secured to a tree. Hopefully the tree doesn't become uprooted anytime soon. Within an hour the O'Wich Easter Basket was full and we were off to search for our missing flower box!



On our way down to visit Betty and help her with an SOS of her own, Carlo spotted the flower box, a bit further down than where the post with welcome sign was located. I think everything has been accounted for except for our springy ladybug and a gigantic pumpkin.



Both the side of the cabin and the flower box were branded with the April 15, 2011 flood stats. You never know...this may soon, one day, become a county landmark - maybe state. Okay, really, just for our own amusement - but you gotta find some humor in all this chaos! But can you imagine people lined up for miles and me selling tickets for people to see the stats on the cabin and the flower box??? People snapping pictures of the "I Survived the Floods Flower Box"? It would be like rubbing Lincoln's nose - a tradition to be passed on for generations! Okay, okay, okay...I'm awake!!!




Carlo then had a brain storm of an idea...Mission Ladybug: The Reverse Covert Op.
We were cleaning up and jokingly the words: "we should add this to the pile" were said and a dare was thrown to the speaker of the words. Well, most people in the area "thieve" and proof has it that we are victims of such an occurrence...well of several occurrences. Let's just say "gnome my dear". With the gears of the dare set in motion, the communications lookout were also put in place. Clocks were calibrated to watches and cell phones to atomic clocks and Greenland was involved, let's just say - we were ready to communicate. The mission began..."Gnome Base to Green Grass Eagle, do you copy?" Minutes into the op, the Red River Rover was on its way over..."Gnome Base to Green Grass Eagle...abort...ABORT!" No need to abort, "the eagle has landed and the transporter drives away." And our hair wrenching, fist clinching, white knuckle mission was complete and without incident and all we did was leave a gift behind for a neighbor. Now that's how you do it - ain't that neighborly? Ain't country life fun??? Carlo had no luck locating our ladybug but while "searching for it" he ran into a neighbor along the road. With his blue tooth communications still enabled and the Gnome Base accidentally pushing buttons and making noises - lots of noises, Carlo most likely looked a bit ridiculous! "Nice chatting but I am on a mission and have got to check for that ladybug just one last time! Happy Easter." There are no photos of this maneuver...c'mon, what do you expect??? It was covert! I can't even give you any further details...you already know w-a-y too much!

Dinner was served up at the Cove and as we drove back we saw an Easter rainbow in the sky. What a beautiful end to a great day! We were back before dark to watch a little TV before calling it a night.

April 23, 2011

We started the morning with a drive-thru disaster meal from McD...this food is rarely ever good but this time I was a bit irate and with the help of Yelp - I said so;
"Another drive-thru disaster. Once back home you find you're shorted butter, syrup and utensils and if an ordering mishap wasn't enough from one window to the next...the breakfast sandwiches were still screwed up! How does a sausage egg and cheese muffin get confirmed as a bacon egg and cheese biscuit end up as a steak egg and cheese bagel? The purpose of the drive-thru is to save time. Why do drive-thru orders always need to be micro-managed???? And why is it they never give you a receipt? Why would I dare expect more from a chain? On a lighter note I guess getting screwed for breakfast will just give me more time later in the day!!!"

After breakfast Carlo power washed the front porch and sidewalk and it looks brand new.



I pulled firewood from the fallen storage area and also walked the road looking for some of our missing stuff...the game continues. FYI: Never an end and never a winner. And of course, no prizes! No pumpkin. No ladybug. No flower box. So far for me - no luck! At 9:30 some friends stopped by for a visit for the rest of the morning. After they left, I got back to the firewood chore and Carlo worked on the tractor. This would be the same brand new tractor with all new parts due to the last flood that only cut the grass once before its demise! After a trip to the store for (more) parts, he got it running. Such a McGuyver!

We decided to take apart the wood crib and salvage what wood that we could. The crib was full of more acorns than we have trees and one could only imagine that when the crib fell from the pressure of the flood - that the chipmunks must have thought they were right in the midst of their own tsunami with a side of earthquake. These same said chipmunks look like albinos. Most certainly due to a lack of food and sunlight. Everything here needs sunlight, even the trees have no color. I feel like I'm living in a sepia colored world! Even the squirrels are lacking color!



We were able to recycle the acorn stash and fill the holes that were left behind when the 2x4's of the wood crib were uprooted from the ground. The wood was soaked from having been in the water for about a week so we lost quite a bit of it to the outside fire pit. Looks like a burn will be a comin'!

Carlo attempted to drive the tractor down to the river but it sunk into the wet ground and he couldn't cross the "new pond" - but he was able to cover himself with lots of mud splatter! With that failed attempt, we added it to our list of this days mishaps; other entries include the chain saw jamming up, the tarp that wouldn't come off the wood crib, the repair of the chain saw (backwards? Are we in Australia or does that only count for toilets that are down under???), and our legs and backs that were k-i-l-l-i-n-g us - make that K-I-L-L-I-N-G us in all caps just for the emphasis! And as the saying goes...without all this bad luck...we would have none. Carlo was able to get the tractor into the shed with the assistance of a couple of ramps and Norm cooked us a fantastic dinner. We ran a few errands and got back for the bonfire.

Carlo used an entire can of charcoal fluid and a flare. After quite a while he figured the wood was just wetter than we thought and the fire would need to wait until another visit.
As we were watching TV a huge noise, like a blast, sounded - okay it wasn't really that loud, but there was a noise that caught our attention. And then the trees started glowing...Fire - Fire - Fire in the pit! I guess that wood wasn't so wet after all! Ewww, look at this fire pit. We need a prettier fire pit...add it to the list!

April 22, 2011

So we've arrived to our nightmare and the game...After Flood Scavenger Hunt! (cue the game show music) Things to look for (in no particular order): cedar park bench, cedar backless bench, cedar flower box, post with welcome sign, landscape lights, ladybug, butterfly and a gigantic orange pumpkin.

Things we found in utter devastation - a flower bed frame pulled from the ground and now askew, a filthy, muddy walkway, stairs and landing, some landscaping timbers strewn about, two - not one - but two wood cribs tippled over, soaked patio cushions (yep...all eight), a bucket (of ours) across the road, milk crate of wood scattered everywhere, the insulation from the crawl space is now off the walls - play the Pink Panther tune in your head - it'll be funnier and besides, the insulation is pink. The propane tank is on its side, NO HEAT, a huge mess under the cabin, a golf ball, a horseshoe and a yard full of water. There's a good chance the six bushes that I planted last year are dead. They look dead...but everything looks dead! There's even a critter that displaced heaps of stones and gravel from under the concrete slab so he could move in!!! Maybe he's an aquanaut of some sort - but if there's water on the land, then that hole has gotta be like a sewer...just sayin'.









This has been one shocking day.

Prior to the end of our day, a neighbor stopped by and chatted with Carlo. During their chat, Carlo asked the neighbor if he had seen our post with welcome sign - let me mention this is the same post that the same neighbor picked up and put on our porch during the September 2010 flood and this same neighbor actually responds with, "yes, it's down a few properties, across the road, in a field." Nice to know where it went but you'd think he'd remember it was ours and not leave it laying out there. Guess he didn't want to be bothered. So Carlo trekked down the road several properties, went across the road into the field and retrieved our post with welcome sign, pulling it back down the road to its home in the front of the cabin! Welcome home!

April 12 through April 15, 2011

The river continued rising up to 19.4 feet. At this measurement, water is at a depth of approximately 3.0 + feet on the property. Once again, as in September, that's a lot of water. Our neighbors told us that the tractor was under water and that the propane tank tipped, but not to worry - they shut the propane off. That is good news...that $hit's expen$ive!!!

Neighbor also said they took pictures for us. (will post when we get them)

Seriously? Another frickin' flood??? UFB!!!!!