Flooding

We decided to go for a drive to go see how flooded the Skokomish River was.

Its been raining all year, inches and inches of rain. Our farm in drenched, the dirt can't hold any more water & its just forming lakes. We haven't seen this much rain in a very long time, years.

This is the Union River outside of Belfair; it's supposed to be a creek.

Here is the Skokomish. It was this high for miles & miles. Its not helping that there was a high tide right as we were in the area so the water has no place to disperse to.

To be honest, this river floods every year but not this high, this is the first time we've seen the houses on stilts still have high water. The road we usually drive down was closed & I'd say it looked to be a few feet deep. 

Here is a photo from a trip a long time ago of the road I'm talking about:

We have seen Salmon fish swimming across this road before.

After we couldn't go see that flooded road, we headed north on Highway 101. 

Stopped at Potlatch State Park for lunch.

This was the view

Continued north, through Quilcene and Chimacum, the headed east over the Hoods Canal Bridge 

Then south on Highway 3 toward Silverdale. There was an accident so bad traffic so we decided to do a bit of shopping at Sportsmans Wearhouse and Sierra Trading Post. 

I got socks & a new flannel shirt.

After that we headed home but there was another accident just past Bremerton & ALL THE ROADS WERE BACKED UP. All the side streets, all the main roads, everywhere just crawling. It took us 1.5 hours to go a 20 minute drive.

I enjoyed being with my husband & our dog, out on the road with no political BS on the radio. A day off work & not doing projects at home. 

That Didn't Last Long

The offer on the house fell through and we were thrilled that happened. 

You see, I don't want to live in a trailer in my In Laws pasture while we look for another home and I've decided I can stay here forever as long as I don't know where we're going to end up. Lan doesn't want to make an offer on another place until we have cash in hand. I had started packing, again, but it was HARD not knowing where my stuff was going to go and for how long. There weren't any good houses available for sale in Idaho or Montana when we were looking.

The people paid for a home/property inspection, found dead mice under the house. Big deal, they were all dead. They had also ruined the insulation but oh well.

Then the people wanted a septic inspection & the guy they chose to do it said one of the two arms had failed & the other had extra stuff added onto it, done illegally by 'some homeowner'. 

The people offered us $25,000 less, saying the drain field would cost them that much to repair. 

We said NO. 

They backed out.

Whew.

We spent $1,600 for our septic guy to come pressure wash out the drain field arms and do video; he said there was no failure, just dirt that you should expect after 40 years. He told us the Distribution Box needed to come up, it had sunken into the clay about 6". The 'illegal' stuff wasn't even there, it is exactly as the county plans were drawn up in 1978. 

We replaced the 'D' box & the pipes connected to it, brought it up to the correct height and put gravel on top to keep it up. Installed 2 risers over the tank openings & got it buried again.

This was in seriously rainy weather, all of it. The 'D' box, pipes & risers cost an additional $800 so we put $2,500 into it all together, just 10% of what they wanted to get out of us.

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So now I'm turning the old dog room into a pantry. It measures 8x8, has this closet inside it. Its also got an outside window, an outside door & a door into the kitchen. I had to clean all the dirty dog dust, dirt, mud and smell out of there. Painted all the walls & trim then started on the closet.

We put in the supports at measurements I found here 

(this Pinterest photo)

It didn't work perfectly since our closet already had the one shelf & dowel but I worked around that. I want 5 gallon buckets to fit under the bottom shelf, I want the top shelves to be a bit smaller so I can use them & they aren't closed off by the ceiling/top of the door area.

I cut all the supports & painted them before I put them up; later I figured out they weren't thick enough & with any weight they would bow & fall. 

So we added more support on the left hand side but Lan put them up before I could paint them. 

That's OK though because I need to paint a couple other spots on the supports too. I hadn't painted the tops because I figured they weren't going to show but once we put the shelves in I discovered a few of the tops will show.

Here are the shelves I got painted today. The color is SHADED GRAY, its the same color as the room trim & on our bedrooms & bathrooms trim upstairs. I've got 1/2" of paint left in the can & still need to paint 2 more shelves and the doors.

These will be painted soon but not tonight.

Same with these doors, they will be painted but I'll need another gallon of the paint. 

Sigh. 

I'd rather get a gallon of the paint, then there is plenty left over for any spots I need to redo upstairs.

This is the door into the pantry from the kitchen.

A can holder similar to this will also be built, it will go on the wall to the right of the window & left of the closet.

I might do another one of these between the door to the kitchen and the outside door, all depends on how many cans I end up getting. There seem to be a lot of them in the kitchen now, stored here & there but I'm sure once I get things organized in the pantry that it will seem bare.

I have a Food Saver vacuum that I use a LOT and now I'll have a place to store all those containers that are currently stashed in various places. I don't feel like this is enough supplies to last very long in case SHIF but it will be better than nothing.

This silly drawing is what it should end up looking like.