Are We Having Fun Yet?

Here Come Da Flood--Again!

Wednesday morning, with the help of a church friend and his horse trailer, we transported our alpacas and llama to our friend Sue's alpaca farm that is only about 4 miles from our place, but is on much higher ground. That night, Bill, Sue, and I set up a 10x10 canvas gazebo in Sue's spare field to shelter a hay bin for the girls and Buddy (our guard llama). The boys were at the same farm during flood season last winter, and were excited to get reacquainted with their old friends. We checked into the Super 8 in Lacey (east of Olympia) about 10:00 Wednesday night. We needed to stay in the Olympia area so Bill would be able to get to work in case the freeway was closed.

Our home was still accessable on Thursday morning, so I spent about three hours there doing laundry and making sure the cats and the goldfish were prepared for our absence. When I left, about noon, the water had crossed our private road just south of our property, and was beginning to creep up from our back pasture fence. I helped Sue with the animals for a couple of hours, and then headed back to Olympia for the night.

The river crested about 2 am in our area, but is receding more slowly than we had hoped, so we plan to stay at the hotel for one more night, and check out Saturday morning. Since the crest was about a foot lower than the flood of Dec 4-5, 2007, it is unlikely water entered our garage and laundry room this time around, but we won't know until we get back to the house. We will definitely have some pasture cleanup to do, but unlike last year, we removed the feeders and water buckets before we left.

I'm leaving for Rochester in about half an hour, and will take my camera so I can post pictures of the pacas and Buddy at their foster farm this evening.