5C's Que Pasa

Over the past few days the lake has been up 8″ over a 24 hour period and then 11″ over 24 hours and now we are rising very quickly.  Yesterday we had massive rain and it created havoc everywhere.  They say that that amount of rain may take a few days to show a rise in water levels.  There are problems everywhere here in the Okanagan.  Creeks overflowing and road washouts, etc.

It rained all of Tuesday night and most of yesterday, Wednesday.  The only good news is that we have not had to water our very saturated garden.

The intensity of rain varied.  It was cool enough for us to relight our pilot light on the fireplace.  My grass really is looking that green.

Between showers, my wacky neighbor got up on his RV roof in his underwear to apply tons of caulking. Guess his old RV was leaking.  I was sitting at my desk and stood up to stretch and looked and and saw this….OMG, what next.  This is the dude that was cleaning his driveway last summer with gasoline and a wire brush in the middle of fire season!!  The only reason his RV is allowed in his yard is because the Park storage lot which was ruined by ground water from the flooding last spring is still under construction.  If your lot was large enough for your RV you were allowed to store it there.  Ours of course has to be stored elsewhere.

This was taken this morning and this, our third step is now well under water at 7:30PM.  The water is rising and is close to our fourth step.  We have a total of five steps.

We have spent the entire day preparing for flooding.  Colin has brought things into the house from underneath.  Everything in the shed is raised and we have secured the yard and patio as best we can.  Have a read below.  This is an email I sent to the person looking after our house once we leave.

It was a busy day and nothing to do with getting ready for our trip.  Not very clear to read but we emptied our outdoor freezer ( in the shed ) as the electrical plug will be underwater, moved things into the house from the crawl space as needed, etc.

We are somewhat concerned as our first stop in Italy has a forecast of rain all five days 🙁   A high of 59F is not fun.  Creative packing is now required as I had not planned for rain nor cool weather.  Not much trip preparedness today due to working the imminent flood situation.  We contacted the manager of the park and he basically said that their priority was to protect the recreation center and the condos.  The rest of us were on our own as they did not have the man power.  We did not expect help but mostly wanted to let them know how quickly the lake was rising and that we were leaving for Europe.  Colin did caulk our sewer so that the lake water ( once it reaches that level ) would not allow the water to enter the sewer system thus alleviating too much water entering our sewage treatment plant.

The manager told us that the input flow into our lake from the higher mountain creeks was greater than the output flow at the North end of the lake would allow which is why the lake is rising so quickly.  Late this afternoon ‘someone’ was bringing in some heavy equipment ( finally) to clear the outlet so the water could flow out.

Meanwhile the park has closed down the rec center which suggests to me that it is already being compromised.  They have also brought in several truck loads of sand today.  Time to start filling sand bags 😯

A serene reflective sunset last evening.

Most readers will recall that last May ( the 7th ) we were evacuated due to flooding.  This is the creek that runs down to our lake.  You can see where the fence ends on top of the creek, past the fence is how the creek bed looked prior to the flood.  A concrete water way had been constructed many many years back but the flow of the water plus the release of water from the dam created a disaster last May.  The concrete creek channel was broken up by the force of the water released and the lake rose, our golf course was destroyed and many of us were evacuated for over two weeks.

The Indian Band whose land we live on, the local government and the Federal government came together and after several months a plan was formed to repair the damage.  It cost millions and it appears to us that they basically widened the stream and apparently put some sort of liner along the bottom.

However we still have several pumps here in the park that have been running constantly since last summer continually draining the ground water.  One of the condos is near our garden plot and I find the noise irritating for even a short period of time.  I can’t imagine living there and listening to that constant irritating noise.  I would go crazy.  The RV storage lot here at the RV park from which we had to get a tow truck to pull us out of last June remains under construction due to the ground water damage.   Fortunately at the moment, our RV is not far from here but up on a wee bluff so it is safe.

Supposedly we will not be affected by flooding this spring.  However the snow pack is way beyond normal as in new records.  This is the first time since 2003 that we have seen so much snow on the surrounding hills as we call them.  The snow has been melting and the creeks and streams have been rising. As of yesterday there was still a 200 % snow pack waiting to melt.  If it gets too hot fast and the snow melts quickly that is bad concerning flooding.  Add rain into that mix and is spells disaster.

Meanwhile a new neighbor to Lake Lane, the name of the street we live on, decided to get his out of control cedar hedge tamed.

This fellow worked very hard.  Some of those branches were very thick.

He did a great job but it took him from 8:30AM to 6PM to get the job done.  I’m sure that the Class A owner will be happy to have more light coming into his RV.  Eventually the brown area will fill in with new green growth.

I bought one of these ‘Travel On Bag Bungee’ gizmos a few weeks ago.  I think it will be the perfect thing to keep my personal item bag fastened to my piece of luggage especially when we are walking several blocks to our accommodations and when traveling via train.  Once we are underway I will be sure to post a photo of my set up and my experiences.

Good news, most of our garden has germinated.  You are looking at kale and Swiss chard.  Along the top are some flower seeds that I have planted.  To the bottom left and bottom middle are weeds that we appear to be growing.  We have also found someone who will water our garden while away, for a fee of course.  Those brown bits are leaf seed coverings from the overhead trees.  Really sticky and messy.

Speaking of watering, we had a forecast of excessive rain last night and today.  The rains did come overnight and today.  Many creeks are overflowing their banks.  We have started to measure the rise of our lake every few hours.  We will let you know how serious the situation is tomorrow and if or what we are going to do to deal with it.

In the news this morning…..

Too much poop.  The black birds are nesting in the cedar hedge and using the area on the roof for their landing area.

I asked Colin for some help.

He put an owl on the roof. My desk is just to the left of the front door. I was tired of bird poop on the steps as well as the front patio.

It appears to be successful as I haven’t heard the pitter patter of the birds walking over my head today nor do we have any more white splotches on the patio.  Mission accomplished 😎   Sadly the geese remain brazen and one particular couple keep coming up on the lawn to dine and to poop on the lake patio.  I suspect that we will come home in June to a patio full of sh** 🙁

We had this tree trimmed before we left for Mexico last fall but it was difficult at the time to get a clear view of the top.  I think we should bring it in a bit on the top upper left.  We don’t want it to get too tall.  Do any of you have thoughts on this?

Last night.  I wonder if we will see any sunsets in Europe.

Walking over to the garden ( about 10 minutes or so ) has become a twice per day event, one that dictates what we do at certain times of the day.  We can’t let the soil get dry at this crucial point of germination.  It would not work to set sprinklers on a timer as someone suggested because of how we are connected to the hose bib.  It appears that some have no idea how to just turn the lever to shut off the flow of water in a certain hose.  There are 5 hoses hooked up at the moment to the one source of water.  When we went to water earlier tonight our hose had been turned on and the ground was wet due to an overflow of water.  All the various on/off levers were wonky.  I think we have found someone who might be willing to water for us consistently.  Needs to be confirmed.  Meanwhile I do have others who will keep eye in the garden and water if it appears dry…hopefully 😕

Another beautiful tree on our walk to the garden area.

A lovely color of Dogwood. This tree is on the same RV site as the Magnolia tree was that I recently mentioned and they have another white Dogwood as was well.  Whoever planted those trees really planned ahead and now there is a lovely array of trees in a small area.

We have not noticed this bird before. It appears to be a Western Kingbird.  Sadly we have not seen it since.  Perhaps it was just passing through.

Despite everything  that Colin has done to repel the geese they just won’t stop coming.  The owl and the reflective pieces of ribbon merely deterred them for a day.

Nice to see some folks enjoying a pleasant Sunday afternoon.

I meanwhile was doing laundry for the trip.  How many shorts can he wear in a day?  And yes Peter, the washer turned the shorts inside out yet again.  Strange.

We also got the laptop ready for travel, updated the software, cleared off the desktop of non important things and did a backup.  Colin has decided to bring a mini hard drive called Passport for Mac which is a special hard drive, the size of a man’s wallet, to back up all of our photos.

Poco a poco.

We spent Saturday sorting out the garden area.

The only way we could leave our hose attached to the faucet was to get a double hose connector from the RV.  So Colin sorted that out and figured out a way to fasten down the hose along the edge of the walkway.  The green boxes belong to our neighbor,  someone we  have yet to meet.

I concentrated on weeding. Look at the root on this one.

Colin also dug up even more of the grasses close to our plot. I later sprayed what was left with vinegar and I am happy to report that they are dying.

We took a chance and planted our tomatoes. I can’t wait to start eating them.  I am sad to miss the day to day changes in the garden but hopefully I will be pleasantly surprised when we return.

We also worked a bit more on fine tuning the trip and sorted out things like chargers, battery packs , voltage and power converters, etc.

Getting excited 😀