flooding

Office progress made with minimal interruptions

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Monday I wanted to really make progress on the office. There was no way we were going to be doing anything outside. We did walk around the farm to see how much damage was inflicted by the water and surprisingly, not a lot. The breakaway sections we built two years ago will need to be reassembled and much weaker clips used so they will actually break away this time. The posts and anchors we installed all held!! This was the plan and the reason we put so much work into getting the anchor points installed. Unfortunately, it will take more than a week for the upper fields to dry out due to the amount of water that was on them. Of course it is scheduled to rain again on Thursday or Friday. This summer we are going to have to clean out the willow areas down by the schoolhouse. A huge lake was created due to the amount of debris backing up in the trees.

Mr Professional wanted to look at the pickup and see if we could get it out of the ram pasture and back out to the front driveway. We had to fix the hydraulic leak that did not get repaired and it would barely engage into gear. We managed to milk it along until we got to the front parking lot and parked it. I am not sure how I am going to pick up the windows this week without it. Hopefully, the windows will fit in Annmarie’s car.

I really wanted to get on the office so we went back at it. It would have gone much smoother if the guy cutting the angles could get it right, five hours of cutting and I would get about one out of four pieces right. I got so frustrated I just wanted to hang it up for the day. Mr Professional just kept badgering me and we just kept cutting more boards. It is mighty hard to get those warped, misshapen and cracked boards up on the ceiling. We joked that it we had to pay extra for character. The problem is that is exactly right! The ceiling is coming together and it doesn’t look like a plain old wooden ceiling. It does have character, it will be unique and it will elicit oohs and ahhs. We almost made it to the halfway mark, I think another five hours and the ceiling will be done. We have one more idea that is going to be tricky but its a surprise for the wife.

Plans interrupted, second 100 year flood commencing

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Sunday was the day we were gonna really get cranking on the office. It was supposed to rain most of the day so working outside was just not going to be an option. Since we had the new door installed on the new office we could turn on the little heater and get it fairly comfortable inside. I had decided that working on the ceiling was going to be our project for the day. Our rain indicator showed that in the last 24 hours we have gotten 1.96” of rain and the back runoff creek Stewart Creek was running muddy and starting to finally rapidly rise. It was still contained in the banks so I was not too worried. Mr Professional came out and we started our discussion on how the ceiling was going to be installed. It turns out that the Juniper wood we purchased from a local mill has a lot of knot holes and cracks in it. This means there are gaps and holes so we needed the intact old intact ceiling to be able to use the new wood. The best part is the old ceiling will peak through the new ceiling. I wanted to just install it in horizontal rows, while this is fairly boring it is the quickest install. Mr Professional talked me into going across the ceiling in a 45 degree angle. We managed to get about five boards installed when my daughter came out and asked us if we had seen the front spring?

We had not but holy moly! The entire front spring was now a raging torrent. The only way this happens is if the creek has diverted upstream and is flowing down all of the hay fields. Mr Professional and I put on waterproof clothing and started going upstream and cutting the panels loose. The metal clips were supposed to break under pressure of the water. This did not happen, the 500# rated clips were holding back a few feet of raging water. We started cutting the cables and clips or grinding through them to release the water and pressure on the fence. This was done blindly sometimes as the water was very muddy. Luckily, earlier in the week after moving hay I had trouble keeping my glasses on due to all of the sweat. I put on these little silicone wings that grab the ear pieces and wrap a piece of silicone around the bottom of each ear. This was essential to me keeping my glasses during the storm. I cut a panel loose and it scratched across the left side of my face and ripped my glasses off of that side of my face. The only thing that kept my glasses on my head was the silicone piece on the right ear! Mr Professional hollered across the water that I was bleeding. There was a short discussion about the known saying ”all bleeding stops eventually!” The bleeding did stop so we continued on and continued to release the breakpoints in the fence the entire length of the property. There was 8-12” of water across the entire bottom grass fields with three feet of grass, by the time I got to the far end of the field, I was utterly exhausted. Mr Professional had gone back to get the side by side so I could ride back and not walk.

The side by side has some major issues and we have known this. It sounded rougher than normal but I concentrated on drinking water and getting back to the house. Annmarie hollered when we got down to the end of the driveway. It turns out that Star, our only white stripped cow had lain her baby down on the wrong side of the raging torrent of water. We ended up catching the calf, who did not like this and were going to just take the side by side up and around the hill and drop off the calf with her mother. The side by side gave its final cough and died as soon as we got to the driveway. It is dead! It will need some major engine work or a new engine to correct its current state. Now the calf is stuck in the side by side with me waiting for a ride. The pickup transmission problem has it trapped in the ram pasture and it is now pinned between two raging water torrents.

So Mr Professional and Annmarie went to obtain her Subaru all wheel drive vehicle. Clear plastic was tossed in the back of the car, I crawled in and held onto the calf while Annmarie drove us up on the back hillside. I let the calf out and it promptly ran in the wrong direction. Annmarie went out and chased the calf down. It was reunited with its mother and all was well.

I was exhausted. A shower was had, 16 ounces of dip and chips consumed and an hour long nap on the couch was needed. As soon as I woke up I talked the wife into driving into Pendleton to “check on the reservoir level” but as soon as we got to Pendleton we went to Dairy Queen so I could eat a banana split!! I wolfed it down, we went home and it was bed time! Not exactly power food but it sure was comfortable and well received. I was supposed to eat some real food in there somewhere. My scratch got scrubbed clean and bacitracin ointment applied. If It scars then I will have a cool ”pirate” wound.

Weed wars & Water ways

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Since I could not cut more hay it was decided that I would spray weeds on Saturday.  The plan was for me to get up early and do this.  I did not get up early, I cooked and ate breakfast, learned from Annmarie that she heard the enemy, racoons, chittering through our bedroom window at 0400.  I suspect they were eating cat food from our back porch.  I have not seen them since our initial skirmish.

I had to call Mr Professional to get the side by side started.  He had not plugged the trickle charger onto the battery so it was low.  I used the external portable battery jumper and it fired right up.  I managed to put about 50 gallons on the ground before the wind picked up and it was time to stop.

It was only about 1030 so I got back onto the tractor, dumped off the manure forks and went up to the pasture flooded out the worst this spring.  I needed to finish the ditch I started last summer and since there is still running water and a mud pit in the middle I need to get the water diverted to my front ditch.  So I spent a few hours creating a ditch and a berm.  My hope is that if the back creek jumps the bank again it will hit the berm and get diverted toward the back ditch.  I did this in both fields, even if they get flooded out it only floods 1/3 of each field instead of 1/2-2/3 of both fields.  The water started to really flow once I dug down a foot.  I will keep working on the berm for the next 2-3 years until I get it 3 feet high all the way across.  I can then plant some grass on it to help hold it in place.  My poor right wrist was getting tired from making the bucket dig, then shake the mud out then use the bucket to push me back out of the ditch.  It was a very nice day.  This field looks much better, last year at this time the entire field was covered in 7 foot tall thistles.  I need to spray again.

On Sunday I did get up sorta early, I was out spraying weeds by 0600.  I realize in farmer time this is late.  I sprayed the barn lot, the ram pasture and all of the field I had just dug the ditch in yesterday.  I really needed to get the hay put up so I can let the sheep and this years eating cows up into the green fields.

With that thought in mind I just decided to give making hay bales a try.  I hooked up and started the baler up.  It took me an hour to get the first three bales made.  The first two bales I could not get packed tight enough and could not get the netting to wrap correctly.  It kept going around a single roller.  I forgot my pocket knife and luckily found one in the tool bag we made for the baler.  It was so dull I am pretty sure it could almost pass as a safety knife.  I also had to remove the packed hay from the pickup tines.  After an hour I managed to get the netting to wrap the third bale.  The key reason it was not working was I was going too slow.  If I drove as fast as the tractor would go and got the hay feed jammed up the hay packed in well.  We ended up with 50 bales of gorgeous grass hay.  The best I have ever made, unfortunately it was only 50 bales.   Annmarie, Mr Professional and I went out and picked up the 50 bales in 30 minutes then loaded them into the barn.  We took the border collies with us and they killed four vole while we picked up hay.  I would love to have them when I cut the hay but I am afraid they would get too close to the sickle bar.  There are hundreds of voles running around when I cut.

Mr Professional has been working on getting our lavender garden planted.  The ground cloth is in, grid laid out, drip line installed and then he takes out 5 gallons of soil and replaces it with premium soil and sets the plant.  I managed to kill about half the plants from forgetting to water.  So we have an order in for next year to replace them.  The tire rubber bark is working out great!  I am looking forward to seeing it all done and in about three years the lavender will be approaching full size.

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I also cut out part of the flooded fence and then used the box blade to flatten the area and get it all prepped for new fencing.  We will install another breakaway point in the field cross fence if the water should break through my new ditch and berm.  I am hoping to get that fence done in the next two weeks.  Their our two alpaca that need shearing this upcoming weekend.

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Flood recovery is slow as it’s not the only thing left to do

Steve HardinLeave a comment

It’s Memorial Day weekend and I had plans to fix my haying problems and fix some fence.  I managed to get “some” fence fixed and did not fix my haying problem.  Friday was very nice and I figured I was going to get loads of stuff done.

I managed to tear apart and rebuild both spring crossings in the yard.  They are now dog proof.  On the plus side, both of these crossings faired very well.  The panels lifted and bowed and moved out of the way of the water.  I will be making every crossing just like these two.  I managed to fix both crossings in under four hours.  I took some measurements for the span down by the propane tank (big picture below).  Annmarie is going to make me some plans for a new bridge.  She is making me plans for trusses, I will build two trusses and install them onto my concrete footings I will be installing then I will be bolting them down to the concrete.  I am going to pour “L” shaped footings so that the truss will rest on the lower L part and push against the upright part.  I will install two large bolts so I can bolt it down.  I will be using all thread, I love that stuff then I can just stuff it down into the concrete.

I did go up and tried to turn the hay in the upper prime field.  It was full of mud, I finally gave up and just started to shove the grass into large piles.  I have a set of manure forks that clamp onto the bucket coming.  I ordered them last week after the flood.  I think we will just burn the piles in place in a couple of weeks if it ever quits raining. I tried to go into the upper prime squared field but it still had water running through it.  I cleaned out the culvert and ended up having to dig out the ditch in about five places to get all the water flowing into designated channels.  I will need to wait a couple of days and go up there and try it again.  I think I may be able to salvage at least 2 acres of grass that did not get mud in it.  But if the rain keeps up it is going to start rotting on me.

The horses LOVE this no fence world as they are gorging themselves on all you can eat grass from all over the farm including my ruined hay fields.  They are so full that both of them were laying down and taking naps in the shade.  So far none of the dogs have escaped the yard after my repairs and they have had ample opportunity over the last three days.  

Yesterday, I decided to focus on our yard.  Sometimes the house needs to be prioritized also and it was time to knock everything down.  I spent the day on the weed eater.  I had to watch a YouTube video to figure out how to get the weed eater to work.  I have to do it every spring as I always forget the ins and outs and after pulling it 50 times in an effort to get it started I figured some help was warranted even if it was unwanted.  The YouTube lady had me up and running in under five minutes!  I also trimmed our lilac bush and some other bush we had in the back that was trying to take over the gate area.  I was getting tired of fighting the plants to get in and out of the back gate.  I burned over 1/2 gallon of gas in the weed eater getting the hillside cleaned off.  I forget how my body feels after five hours of using the weed eater.  My single biggest complaint is what the vibrations do to my hands, they ache.  I love getting old.

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Today, Annmarie and I went out to work on the lavender patch.  I dug about 14 rocks out of the patch that I had not removed and cleaned up a pile of ash.  Annmarie wondered how we were ready if I had not done all the prep.  I reiterated that one cannot have all the prep work done ahead of time and it was not very much.  She laid out the ground cloth while I carried in the fake bark.  We have colored recycled shredded tires.  I put out 1200 pound of the stuff and it didn’t even make a dent!  We quit laying out ground cloth because I did not want the wind to tear it all up and we ordered another 10k# of recycled tires.  It will be here in 10-14 days.  The nice part was I just scooped it up into a five gallon bucket by hand and spread it out with the bucket.  It worked great and stopped me from having to try and rake it out over the ground cloth.

Once we ran out of that I went out to help Mr Professional, it was supposed to rain so he was not going to spray.  Instead we took the spare wood out to the old chicken coop.  This meant he pulled the down fence mess off of the culvert so we could drive the trailer and pickup across.  Unfortunately, this exposed the torn out corner near the culvert.  It was not bad only a couple of feet but enough that the trailer was not going to get past.  I had moved some rocks into the barn lot that I was going to use on the flat spot I made behind the barn.  I had expressly collected huge rocks as that was what I wanted to go there.  So we used those rocks to fill in the hole that allowed us to drive the trailer across the culvert.

While he was getting ready to unload the wood, he had to clear a spot I tried to straighten out the Alcatraz water area, I cleaned off the grass on the side that was supposed to allow water in and then chained onto it.  I moved it about two feet before it hit resistance and I just started sliding all over the muddy hillside.  I need it to actually dry out for a few days.  We unloaded the wood, while it started to rain again.  We staged about 20 pieces of blue pine for the bathroom on the front porch.  The plan is to start working on the bathroom for a few hours every evening and get it done!  I so want a second bathroom and our bathroom lights came on Friday.  The rosettes I ordered to go around the mirror came but they only had 1/2” nails with them and I wanted at least 1.25”.  I ended up ordering another 6 rosettes from a different place with longer nails.  These are all hand forged and come with 1.25” nails to hold them in place.  They will hopefully be here this week so I can install them and remove the board I have propped across the entire room leaning onto the mirror.

I did go out into the orchard after we finished with the ground cloth.  I realized that the culvert was still plugged up and it was causing water to run across the orchard.  I spent an hour hand digging and pulling out weeds and branches from the ditch until I got the backlog down and the channel cleared out for 20 feet.  I then went down to where the water ran under/through the far fence.  Ouch, there is a three foot drop off that is about 14’ wide.  I am going to have to just cut the fence, install two H braces on either side, put a cable across the top and hang cow panels down.  I can fill up the one side with large rocks but I am running out of easy access to large rock piles.  I have one rock pile in the orchard that I  had been building up from all over the orchard.  I think I can hang some weights on the panels so that the cows cannot lift them but if the water rushes by again it will just lift the panels.  This is my new plan, all water crossings need to be able to “float” out of the way if we ever get flooding again.  Annmarie tells me that we beat a record rainfall set in 1894 with this flood on this day.  I would believe it but that surely does not help when you are cleaning up.  As always, we are grateful and fortunate that none of the houses or buildings were damaged.  We are just cleaning up fences and losing hay, less than $20K dollars worth of damage.  The amount of work it will take to fix it is the hard part, that took several years to install.  On the plus side our bridge for the barn lot survived!  I just have to hook onto it with the tractor and pull it back.  I will have to find another extra railroad tie as I was pretty much the only one who could drive the tractor across the four foot bridge.  You cannot get a straight shot at it so it makes it very hard.  I am making a list of more things to by now.

I even went down to the barn lot crossing and fished out all the blocks today.  It was a mess.  I am going to buy another 200 blocks and then rip out what is currently installed and replace them all.  I want to extend the blocks out along the sides and then stick the crossing on top of the blocks, this should gain me another foot of clearance and prevent the bridge from being eroded out.  I am fine with it being lifted off its footings as this is a safety feature.  This many blocks will take 3-4 people about a day to install.  Once those are in and the bridge is back in place then I can worry about getting the fence back in place.  It’s going to be a long summer.

I am going to have to focus on the cross fences above first to keep the animals out of the hay fields.  So that is the next priority project, once I have those done we can sort the cows and pull the young meat heifers off of the main herd and then let the bull back in with the cows.  The steers and heifers can go in the upper prime pasture and we will get two fences between the bull and them.

 

 

Too much of a good thing is not always great.

Steve Hardin1 Comment

It’s been a long week, even longer than normal.  Wednesday morning before going to work Annmarie asked me to go out and lift the fence crossing I had lowered over the back creek.  We had already gotten 1.5” of rain in the last 24 hours and she figured Stewart Creek would start rising as it had turned muddy and was up about 8”.  So I went out and did that before going to work.  By noon it was coming out of its bank and by 1400  it was so high it was just running across a 1/4 mile section of the road above our property.  All of this water was then going into the front spring runoff area and we had a rushing stream going through the barn lot that was 5-6’ high.  Needless to say that the spring flow is normally measured in inches.  All of my pictures are the next day after the flooding occurred.

Annmarie kept sending me pictures while I was at work.  It was painful to watch.  The best part was we lost no animals, no humans, no damage to our house and absolutely no damage to our front walking bridge.  This is almost a best case scenario for any flooding. The back creek did not jump out of its channel due to erosion, it literally just got so high that it just flowed over the banks in multiple locations.

Another plus is the front spring bed is now all gravel, it is a couple feet lower in places and there are a couple of waterfalls. On the negative side we are missing a foot bridge that was in place to allow the propane guy to walk across the spring and fill our tank.  This will need to be fixed in the next two months.  It will require two concrete footings on each side and then I have to give the span to Annmarie and she will find an arched truss bridge made out of 2×6 boards that I will build.  

The barn lot was all finished last year, I had made two separate flower garden areas and an animal drinking area, those do not exist.  Nor does the the 5’ wide railroad tie bridge that I used to drive the tractor across.  The bridge has vanished.  I have not found it yet.  The only reason the fences in the one flower area survived is I installed huge rock cribs and tied them all together.  They were more than the water could handle.  One is lifted up by about 8” but it is still staying in place.  I will be moving the location I was going to put bee hives on another 6’ higher.  I don’t want them to get washed away.  I had two brand new 16’ panels leaning up against the fence, they have disappeared, again I am unsure where they ended up.

 

The mamma/baby area is missing a little 2’ spring crossing and all of the fence near the water.  The barn lot cow panels have been mangled and piled up along the bank.  I think the damage would have been less severe if I had not cut hay a week ago and the field had not flooded and carried all the loose hay into the waterway effectively damming it up in places.  This was not good for the fence crossings.

The culvert crossing in the middle of the barn lot is washed out.  It needs to be replaced and this time the culvert needs to be 4’ instead of 2’.  The water moved the Alcatraz water fencing but did not manage to rip it down.  Thankfully, the bull was contained.  I am going to let him and his compatriots out of Alcatraz tomorrow after I chain three gates closed top and bottom so he has two fences between him and the heifers in the lower pastures.

The three upper cross fences have all been laid over by the water pressure.  The cut loose hay just created dams when it hit the fence, I have maybe 1-2 acres of hay I can save if I am lucky but a lot of it is ruined with mud.

The far upper field triticale is ready to be cut, it is a horrible threadbare crop but I cannot harvest it as the entire field was under water.  I may get 3-5 tons off of it.  The upper middle field did not follow the ditch I had started to dig.  I did not carry the ditch far enough up the field.  This needs to happen this spring.  I had two culverts up there but had not installed them yet, the water knocked one into its spot, the other one is too small and I will need to get a bigger one.

On the plus side my little 1 acre spot of peas may come through and I may get to harvest it!

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Bottom line is I have a lot to do, I have had several people offer to come out and help.  I am going to take those offers up so I can get a leg up on all that needs to be done.  I cannot get out in the fields so I am planning and staging already.  I have 100 2x6x16’ tamarack boards ready to be picked up on Tuesday, I have 300 4” Fastenal anchor bolts purchased, I have purchased clamp on manure forks for the tractor bucket so I can move rocks and loose hay easier.  The manure forks should be here next week.  I still need to buy about 150 cinder blocks, 100’ of cable, a bunch of metal clips, some gates, metal panels and about 1200’ of woven wire, 30-6” posts (I may have enough from my spring used post purchase if I can cut them in half, even better if I can cut them in thirds.  I will need to bring over a bunch of rocks and I will need about 10 more cow panels.  Annmarie has said I can use tires to hang from the creek crossings that are in the upper pasture as the bull won’t be able to move them but the water will be able to push them.  I will also need some plywood, probably 8 sheets and some 2x4s and about 50 bags of Sackrete to pour the four footings.    It sounds like a lot of work, that does not include replanting both garden areas.  The plan is to just fix it all and take into account the problems that Mother Nature threw at us and see if we cannot work around them so they don’t get us next time.