Flood recovery ongoing

I'm hoping my sons will fix the road. If not, I'm prepared to hire someone. Meanwhile, I'm working at repairing the severely, nearly compromised, dike. At 85, it's slow and painful going. I was asked about getting a volunteer crew to help, but it's just not practical. I'd have to be micro-managing it all, and I'm only able to manage one or two helpers at a time. I get worn out in 3-4 hrs and it's not worth having them make the long drive for that amount of time. Less stress if I just whittle away at it. My son, Lee, will be back from his summer in Colorado on Friday. That'll be a big help. I'm going down to work some more Thursday, and thinking of asking my neighbor Ricky Green for help.

In the above photo, I'm in the middle of repairing an area of the dike that washed badly. The white rocks are holes I filled with rock, and then topped with dirt. After that, I restored the steps as best I could. There're two other similar areas to do. No hurry, in that we won't get another deluge like that in my lifetime.

I also did some weed-eating, besides managing to top off the stucco tank from the broken tank. Before I came back to town, I took my pump out of the tank. Exhausted, trying to get the 35 lb. pump out of the water that was covering a good six inches of mud, I lost my balance and fell smack into the mud. I have an agonizing time getting to my feet any time I get down, so it was an ordeal. I crawled a ways, but only got more mud-covered. Finally and painfully, I used my walking stick in one hand and when I got the pump dragged up the slope a bit, I was able to use both the pump and the stick to get to my feet. It hurt my knees a lot, but I had no options. After that, I had to spend an hour getting mud off me, the pump, hoses, electric cords, etc. No photos because I don't dare take my phone with me into the tank.

I need to pump water Thursday and I discovered the heavy 3" line going to the stucco tank had washed away from the connecting joint during the flood. That's something I can't fix by myself (I could have 10 years ago), plus the 3" pump connected to it is very difficult to start. Also it's time to start watering again unless it rains soon. Thursday will be two weeks since things got watered. Normally, I don't let it go that long, but after the huge deluge, I felt ok with doing that.

Lots of butterflies, and saw my first migrant bird of the season, this lovely Yellowheaded Blackbird.