More flood photos

These are photos that Bryan took on his phone during the ordeal. Again, not many words to say, as the pictures tend to tell it all.

Laundry room

Damaged fenceline

Swimming weeds

Front of the house, from the road

Front yard 

That's Bryan out there

The sandbox, getting a washing

This is the car trailer loaded with stuff about to take on water

Side of the house

Getting ready to evacuate at this point

Right before we evacuated

Ripping up wet carpeting

The mud fest after quite a while of pressure washing

Flood Cleanup

Another photo journal... 

Much. Too. Tired. To. Blog....

Some of the in-laws stuff, some of our stuff. Mostly garbage now.

Sorting station

View from the back of the shop towards the orchard.

Lots of wet photographs...

Nothing was overlooked by this mud monster

Formerly known as "the safe area" - first time it's ever seen water

A loaned dump trailer - full already

Corvallis Church friends are helping with fencing and cleanup

Looking in onto our shop floor

Hazelnuts float, just fyi

Even the toolbox didn't get spared this time

This stuff is literally everywhere

Floods Stink

Cleaning up after a flood is not as easy as it looks. It's also not as hard as it looks when you've got quite a bit of people wanting to do something to help. From far and wide, people have asked how they could help. Right now, our biggest issues are MESS and MONEY. Fortunately, we've gotten quite a few warm bodies showing up at various hours on any given day to give of their time. One of my favorites are the laundry fairies. They are a small group of friends from varying backgrounds, who don't even all know each other, that are coming by every day. They don't all come by every day, but they are pretty regular. They pick up a bag of dirty, they bring back a bag of clean. Want to know the best thing about it? The smell.

Everything in and around a flood just stinks. Literally. Then after awhile, you start to just be a mouth breather, and you begin to drown out the smell with sheer determination. Don't get me wrong, it's not horrible, but who wants to take the chance and find out for sure? We do live on an organic farm. There is "organic" all over the place. There has been a warning sign at the end of our road "Warning. Health Hazard! Raw Sewage may exist" or some such thing. But I tell ya, whenever a load of laundry gets opened, and a fresh clean sweatshirt is donned for the new days work, I inhale deeply. Then I do it again just because I'm so glad I can. I smell the scent of clean. Of relief. Of hugs from people who just do what they do because they can. It keeps me going.

My laundry room after the water receded... sopping wet and muddy.

Receding Waters

The rains go down and the sun comes up. Only we didn't get much sun. But still... it was such a relief to see the water begin to recede. Or was it? Now it's clearly visible all the work there is to come. It's also quite obvious that we need some help. 

Trailers make for "higher ground" alternatives. Belongings on the right, a trailer full of chickens on the left.

Silt covered just about everything

This is sort of like planning an event that I don't want to be in charge of. I've made my list though... and here we go. 

Marys River Flood Jan 19, 2012

I know I've had a few visitors checking in over here to see how we're doing, and I'm sorry to be absent for so long. Well, we've been through the river and back, but we're ok! After evacuating for a couple of days, we are finally home. We have no heat (ducting under the house if full of silt and water), we have no water to drink (well is contaminated) and we also have no functioning septic system (that's sure fun with four kids!). With some help with a few people in our community, we're getting by and hopefully the clean up won't take too much out of us.

I'll let the following photo journal tell the story for you, because truthfully, I'm much too tired and cold to talk anymore. I also included Part 1 of my YouTube videos of the flooding in my "neighborhood". I originally took the video and posted it to share with my Mom, because she likes all the details of stuff. Then I decided to share it on Facebook with my friends and family. Then, somehow, it contracted a mini-virus and shot up to over 12,000 views in the first day. Goodness, now a zillion people get to hear what I sound like with my own mini-virus, the kind that makes me sound like I am speaking with a mouthful of cookies and a package of cotton swabs poking me in my lungs. Yeah, great!

Anyway, without further ado... the photos from January 19, 2012 (also, my son's 9th Birthday!)