Friday, May 6, 2005

I'm going to try and keep myself from compulsively snapping photos. A neighbor I'd never met--Lonnie--drove up on a four-wheeler. He said he'd phoned the sheriff's office and told them he'd check on everyone. There are twelve of us stranded this side of the washout, he said. My neighbors downstream--Mike and Debbie and their daughter--are stranded on the other side of the gap. They have a huge flock of goats and many llamas at their place, which is under water: Lonnie said he thought they might lose their house; the foundations are going. I don't know what's going to happen to their animals. Lonnie said he'd promised to check on them. N. was over earlier in the day--walked in over the ridge and I showed him where to cross the neighbor's intact footbridge. He took photos of my situation at the washed-out bridge and ponds. He said if his own connection to the highway doesn't wash out overnight (water's six inches below his bridge, and rising), and if the neighbor's footbridge is still there, he will drive us out of here tomorrow if we need anything. He's contacting Lonnie now to tell him the same thing, for the rest of the strandees. For now, we are warm and dry, and the well isn't in jeopardy. The llamas finally went up to the trees. 6:52:11 PM    comment []

The road is washed out between here and the highway. Completely washed out. I drove down there to check. Creek roaring through a 40-foot gap, no warning signs up or roadblocks. When I got back I called the sheriff's office to see whether there was a private property owner who might be providing access to cross property to a highway, but they didn't know. They took my phone number so they could keep tabs on me. Then I had to figure out a way to reach the llamas with food. For morale, if nothing else. I want them calm. They're very anxious, have been pacing all day, in the muck--very unusual. They keep staring up at their dry hillside beds under the junipers but they won't go up there. I'm wondering whether there might not be a predator taking refuge up there keeping them away. This whole flood thing, and the down fences, has them really upset. I trudged over to the abandoned shack upstream. Hasn't been lived in for 20 years. The bridge there is holding, so far. They were smart and built it up on stones at either end to raise it. Then I found the only way to reach the llamas was to scale the steep muddy ridge side around the water at one point. I slid partway into the drink just before I reached them and my wading boots filled with water and I was drenched to the waist. Yuck. Called them over and they stepped right up, wet and nervous. The main pond (compare and compare and compare). On the way back: Middle pond. Where the water usually enters--two small ponds--now one wide river to cross. If we get a gap in the rain--predicted to continue through Wednesday--I'll drag a bale of hay over there for them. Might have to break it up and pack it over in sections there at the end. Well, this is an interesting development. 5:27:49 PM    comment []

It's the flood of ought-five Bridge is gone, ponds, all three, are pretty much history. Pasture is underwater. Fence at the northwest end of the pasture has washed out, so when the waters recede the llamas will make a beeline for freedom. Click here to follow along as I upload photos throughout the day. 12:16:59 PM    comment []

I'm building a separate category for today's ongoing series of flood pictures. Please bear with me as I shunt these photos outta here. 11:58:20 AM    comment []

The rain is raining all around. It falls on field and tree. It falls on the umbrellas here And on the ships at sea. (R. L. Stevenson) 4 a.m. Crashed hard last night at 11, wide awake at a quarter to two. It didn't help that moments before I went to sleep Greta raced up the stairs to bring me a gift. And dropped it after a moment in front of my bedroom writing desk, and then played cat-and-mouse all night in my bedroom--with an actual mouse. Into my closet, among the shoes, behind the dresser, finally under the crate of poems and papers. At two I sat up, tense and confused. Greta crouched quietly near the crate. I lifted one end of it. The mouse ran out. The game resumed. The rain smites more and more, The east wind snarls and sneezes; Through the joints of the quivering door The water wheezes. ... (Thomas Hardy) It's frightening when the rain doesn't stop. How much water can the sky carry? Each day for two weeks we get afternoon respite, evening sprinkles, night-long deluge. Rain. Floods. Frost. And after frost, rain. Dull roof-drumming. Wraith-rain pulsing across purple-bare woods Like light across heaved water. Sleet in it. And the poor fields, miserable tents of their hedges. Mist-rain off-world. Hills wallowing In and out of a grey or silvery dissolution. A farm gleaming. Then all dull in the near drumming. At field corners Brown water backing and brimming in grass. Toads hop across rain-hammered roads. Every mutilated leaf there looks like a frog or a rained-out mouse. ... (Ted Hughes, from "Rain") I put chopped walnuts and dates into last night's cornbread, and then ate too much of it, it was so good. We took boxes of unwanted books to the Friends of the Library bins yesterday. And boxes of unwanted coats and pans and woks and boots to the What Not Shop. While I looked over the 25-cent books on the sale table there, Brian picked out a toy--a metal military jet, bomber of some kind. He never has had an interest in toys before but he's very pleased with this. Perhaps it reminds him of something from Star Trek. At the 4-Corners Market we bought rice syrup, milk, and bananas. We stopped at Heard Plumbing, where we finally paid off the plumbing bill. We stopped at Surprise Valley Electrification Cooperative and caught up the electric bill. Fat drops of rain splattered on the windshield glass as we left the town limits and headed back east. I keep a worried eye on the gas gauge at all times now. Country life is becoming expensive. Soon only the wealthy will be able to afford it. Who has cleft a channel for the torrents of rain, and a way for the thunderbolt, to bring rain on a land where no man is, on the desert in which there is no man; to satisfy the waste and desolate land, and to make the ground put forth grass? Has the rain a father, or who has begotten the drops of dew? (Job 38:25-28) 5:30 So I go to the window now to see what's out there in the gray dim dawn--and lo! the bridge to the pasture is compromised. Racing downstairs to my rubber boots, coat, I grab the rake and run down to the roaring water. I begin dragging debris away from the bridge. The rake breaks. I fetch another from the garage. I fling it tines-first out into the water and drag the wood to shore. After I clear a course around the bridge, I step onto the bridge gingerly and with my hands grab the largest logs I can reach without going too far and loosen them, toss them downstream. After a while of this I find I am stand almost bridge center, and through the gaps I see the real problem is underneath. A great mass of logs and debris has hung up in the cross-pieces underneath. I reach through and try to loosen some of it. Finally there's nothing more to be done but walk away. The month of rain has tasks that are its own... (Wandelbert) 6:12:17 AM    comment []