And then the rains came
Well for the moment the dry spell here has gone. We have been on Level 4 water restrictions within days of being on Level 2 because of the fires we had in December some rain had washed all the soot and muck from the fires down into the Mitchell River and affected our water supply, so it had to be sourced elsewhere and they put us on Level 4 as the supply was limited. The Mitchell River was and still is the colour of Cadburys milk chocolate! a real muddy brown... In the past week we have had so much rain, Bairnsdale had over 160mm within 24 hours and I reckon we had just as much here. They were suggesting flood warnings were imminent and so I started to worry as the last flood here was in 1998! Kath was living here then, she was still recovering from her stroke and had to be evacuated from the house at about one in the morning by the fire brigade and taken away in a fire truck! The water was only inches from the floor boards!I am home alone, well not completely alone, I have two dogs and two cats to keep me company, well Ashley is once again laying awkwardly on my legs below my knees while I have the lap top on the top half of my legs, boy is she nice and warm! I now know how I am getting all these little bruises on my legs as she has such hard feet! Rusty is on the back of one of the chairs in the corner asleep and Millie and Missy are asleep on the floor together. I have the heater on as it is so damn cold. Gerard is in Queensland with Geoff for two weeks staying in Annette and Paul's house while they are in England. So if it floods!!! H.E.L.P.......... ME...... what do I do first. I also got a phone call from the next door neighbours, they are holidaying in the top half of Western Australia and were too worried about any flooding. Could I ring their son if it got into their garage please????
Shit their garage is really my last worry. The Purple Palace is on ground level for a start, all my stuff on the lower part of the Palace will not fit on my two tables. My neck, shoulder and hip are buggared from throwing stupid stale bread out to the swans who were too timid to come closer because the dogs also wanted the bread so I had to toss it further out to them!! How hopeless am I?? The garage, which was a carport still has boxes in it on pallettes which are only so high off the floor, bloody heavy and inaccessible because Gerard parked or should I say squeezed his beloved OLD Harry Holden in there too as close to them as possible. The water mounted up a couple of inches because it had no where else to flow seeing the sides had been boarded up! That was just a start. The wind was blowing in all directions so the front door was saturated when I got up in the morning and when I tried to open it I had to tug at it and ended up breaking the beading that was especially ordered in to match the floating floor boards. It was obviously made of that MDF type of stuff and got wet and swelled and so the tugging on the front door broke it into bits!! So then I had to get a screw driver and hammer to ease the rest up so I could then shut the front door! So much fun... to be had...
The verandah????? how did it cope with the rain????? why do I mention this???? well with the wind and rain in all directions the rain blew up the roof of the verandah and then dripped down under the eaves onto the swing, fridge, and other chairs etc to make them wet. At least it was not more black soot when the fires were happening, that was shocking stuff to clean up! Also the water was coming in through the gaps of the wall panelling too. Anyway so far we have survived. Maybe I should struggle with the old lounge suite and put that out there to get wet and then......... hmm it would not come inside again... yoo hoo.. while the cat is away??????? hmm will think about that one for later on.. well it is not comfy to sit on, the couch is only comfy to sleep on.
I was constantly monitoring the puddles that were happening out the back and also how squishy it was getting when taking the dogs for their walks. The lake level has risen, so much so that the sandy area where all the swans usually gather has disappeared and the water is about eight inches from the top of the retaining wall! Where we launch the kayaks has filled up also and where I used to leave the wheels is under water! So you can understand while I am getting worried. The "pond" that completely dried out during the hot weather with no rain has once again filled up and over and is almost over the walking path, parts of the path are under water too. I took the dogs along there and took a couple of photos of them running to me where the water was over the path. Look again at the two pics at the top of this entry to see them! I was trying to get them to run through the water and splash about, but it did not happen so.
Gerard is not due home til Thursday night so hopefully I won't need any help this week. Have another osteo appt for my neck as it is a real pain next week, it is just not letting up. The swans will just have to come closer from now on.
Missy has her own blog of her adventures so you can have a read of how she is doing and what she is up to!!!
Oh yes we are now on Level 3 water restrictions as they have managed to filter some of the water from the Mitchell River. How clever is that?
posted by Jill @ 3:10 pm
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