End week one

I am now constantly reminded that many of our paved bike paths were designed to double as waterways. The mini wetlands to the right didn't make it, but I'm guessing it would have been worse without them. A trip across town isn't quite what it used to be.

Motivation's been incredibly low this weekend, so I didn't haul debris or sling mud like I thought I might. A friend sent me some photos of trails at a local park as reassurance that the need for assistance isn't going anywhere in a hurry. That made me feel a little better, but this is what made my day...

I was just thinking about him the other day and now he's back. I really needed a Waldo today.

Spoke too soon

So, I was feeling a little disconnected from the flood, being in a dry neighborhood with nothing much to do. I've made no contribution to the growing dumpster mounds that are popping up around town and I haven't had to learn new skills like uncarpeting or turning your house inside out.

I'm part of the club, now.

I came home today to happy, little spores waving at me from the drywall. Now this spot has had a persistent leak since before I moved in and no one's been able to fix it properly, so the damage isn't all brand new. It just took a flood to bring out its nasty side. I've been wanting to rip off the drywall for years to see just what the hell was going on under there, but a pending neighborhood lawsuit always stayed my hand. We settled a year ago, so tonight I got my chance. For two hours, with the help of a neighbor's fan and the right supervision, I took my wall apart.

The corner bead's a bit of a pain, so now I wait to see what the HOA wants to do next. Our management has far more pressing matters at other properties and I have no mold allergies, so I'm in no hurry. Heck, I've likely been living with these guys for nine years without knowing about it. My secret roommates are spores.

In better news, parsnips can swim. Sort of. I had to haul them out of the ground tonight after I found their tops all limp the day before. Some have a few squishy spots, but we'll see what we can do with them. Sadly, the eggplants and tomatoes don't seem to have mastered the breast stroke and only mentioned that they were drowning after five days, so garden cleanup's going to be super early this year.

Can't wait to see what Friday's like...

The name of the game

Today's game is called "find the bike path in this picture."

 

I'm sure it's down there somewhere. You just have to look closely.

Thank goodness for the late summer plows. We could make some interesting sand castles if the materials weren't so questionable.

Arbitrary postdiluvian thoughts:

• Instead of asking "how did your house fare?" try counting the number of towels hanging on the fence and hoses snaking from the basement window to the gutter.
• Riding to work on muddy streets is like cyclocross (which I have never done).
• Riding home from work on dried streets, especially behind a bus, is like being at Burning Man (where I have never been).
• They all talk about the mud. Soon we will talk about the dust. I think I prefer the mud.
• Colorado is aptly named. Just look at the shade of what's covering our streets.
• Four days spent primarily in the house can result in couch sores and/or a fairly clean house.
• Always have sufficient cake on hand for emergencies and remember to ration it. The fourth day can be particularly long without cake.

Where do we go from here?

I took a trip to our neighborhood market on Friday. I passed two closed roads, a drowned school, lots of people hauling carpeting outdoors, kids swimming in pools of water and other unknown liquids, and streams still flowing across yards that didn't have streams before. The market is barely a mile from my house.

Crestview students won't be in class here for a long time.

While kids played in the water below, helicopters above ferried other kids off the mountainsides.

If you look carefully at the hillside, you'll see the slides that brought the new soil to the east side of the street.

This is my "almost home" view. I thought it was particularly pretty this spring when all the late snow left the hills exceptionally green. It's a sight that nearly always makes me smile. I've bumped up the contrast here to make the slides more obvious.

We were asked to avoid going out because we needed to make room for the first responders. I watched long convoys of National Guard vehicles stream past every day and I am in the flight path between the airport and the mountains. Chinook helicopters made my house vibrate. Because I was without my own personal flooding, I checked with friends around town to see if anyone needed help. Fortunately for all of them, none did, but that left me stuck inside for a few days, feeling pretty bored and useless. It's a weird and uncomfortable feeling being surrounded by so much disaster yet disconnected from it.

Saturday I felt slightly better having broken in to a neighbor's house to turn off the gas stove he accidentally left on and then released a gold finch who was trapped in some netting (not mine) in the garden, but I still haven't directly offered any flood help. My trip further in to town that day revealed families and neighbors helping one another remove ruined furniture, the Crestview parents emptying out the school, the Waldorf school parents drying out toys in the parking lot, and the Quakers drying out the meeting house. It looked like everyone had come together and had things in hand. I'm guessing by the look of things online that other opportunities to help will be forthcoming.

Our skies have been all over the map since Friday morning.

The morning after (Friday, AM)

All quiet on the western front (Friday, PM)

Um, whatcha doin', thunderhead? (Saturday, PM)

And the animals have been all over the map, too. Confused crayfish are popping up in parking lots. Slugs are multiplying exponentially. Peacocks have gone astray (I will stop by their house tomorrow to see if they made it back). And there are toads all over.

And Sunday it rained. And we all sang, "Rain, rain go the f*ck away" for the hundredth time. Tomorrow we go back to work. And we start putting things back together one day at a time.

Note: I have a bunch of video from the last few days, but have yet to edit it down to a postable size. I'll work on that.

Ummm...I think we got all the raindrops, thanks.

I think I liked Tuesday night's smell better. Now it's more like mud.

Maybe Wednesday's air-drying turkey vultures were a little ominous. The rain just never stopped.

Yeah, we got that first one covered. This is a five minute walk from where I live.

Things are just fine back on this side of the neighborhood. Work was closed this morning and my street had our usual temporary duck pond, again without ducks.

This is where the screechy racoons usually hang out, but I'm not sure where they are now. Overflow from the parking lot adjacent to the garden has once again given me watery pathways and I'm thinking of looking into aquaculture, but most of the remaining plants are alright. I guess we were just about done anyhow.

The other side of the western boundary of the neighborhood is another story. There are new waterfalls appearing on the eastern slopes of the foothills and they have lead to this.

There's usually no water running through here. It's a bike path that dead-ends in a lot that's being prepared for new construction. Little kids play under the overpass all the time. I didn't even know there was a waterway in the area that could head that way (Silver Lake Ditch, which stretches all the way from our favorite swollen creek).

The businesses and homes over this way have been overwhelmed with water and debris, including some from the storage units over there.

A dentist on the east of the side of the street was using random bits of stuff that had floated over from the storage units to try and divert the water away from his office door. I wished him luck. Jamestown, Four Mile Canyon and many of our other former burn areas are having a rough time. Houses are collapsing, roads are disappearing and people are stranded. Listening to the dispatchers last night was both reassuring and devastating. The National Guard vehicles streamed by for about an hour this afternoon. They're staging at the mini-golf place up the road. The sirens went off for about ten minutes tonight as they asked most of the folks at the mouth of the canyon to get the heck out. Reports of approaching walls of water in the night are scary even when you're high and dry. I wish them all luck and we'll wait to see what tomorrow brings.

Petrichor

We haven't smelled it in a long time. In fact, I can't remember when it last rained around here. But tonight the skies are rumbling and flickering and the cars passing by are making their wet-wheels sounds. We have puddles on reflective streets. I would go out and dance around in it, but I got enough of a soaking on the way home. Rumor has it that this could continue for a few days. There are still a lot of summer stories to tell, but I think we may have turned a corner.

Taking labor day seriously

Some people went camping. Some people went to the beach. Some people took it easy. My Saturday/Sunday/Monday went like this:

Clean up the house a little.
Go ride bike to raspberry-picking place while the sun is hiding.
Pick raspberries in blazing sunshine and (ick) humidity. Enjoy mosquitoes.
Ride home and realize I now have four cups of raspberries to use up, pronto.
Collapse on couch with ice cream and those raspberries that look "squishy."
Start step one in making annoying room-corner moons disappear.
Realize paint in cans is 9, 6 and 5 years old. Get a cup of water. Start thinning.

Wait for paint to dry.

Wash dishes.

More paint.

Make raspberry buttermilk cake.

Eat cake. Sleep.

More paint.

More cake.

Start to make relish for canning. Get as far as "set aside for 4 hours to macerate." Greaaaat.

Real breakfast by noon (yay!)

More paint.

Go out to clean up garden while clouds are present. Clean garden in blazing sun.

More ice cream.

More paint.

Finish cooking relish five hours late and shove it in the fridge for a day when canning does not sound insane.

Watch Doctor Who after swearing at itunes for lack of sound.

Sleep.

More paint (surprise!)

Find two dozen spots just to "touch up" in other rooms.

Leftover breakfast by ten (woohoo!)

Touch up two dozen spots again.

Mulch flower bed. Blazing sun? You bet!

Bring canning stuff up from garage and shove it in a corner.

Bring painting stuff down to garage and hope I never have to use it again.
Drive in wiiiide circle around town collecting plants, tomatoes (because mine were eaten by Bambi), groceries, heavy cat supplies, new cat food tray, new cat rug, new sheets (hmmm, which purchases are cat-based?)
Make gazpacho to save last of pickling cucumbers.
Sit. Try not to let head fall into bowl of gazpacho.
Move 90% of the furniture, mop 90% of house.
Watch fat cat freak out over new cat food tray. Consider it a potential diet regulator.
Stare helplessly at the remainder of the "get this sh*t done" list. Realize scones are not happening tonight.
Get the ice cream and raspberries out...

Next weekend, I'm drinking. Then maybe I'll go camping.