Praise the Lord... REALLY!

We are SO very greatful! The river crested more than a foot lower than it was predicted to, and two feet below what we experienced in Dec 2007. We had no water in our garage or laundry room or under our house this time. We spent Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday nights at the Super 8 near Olympia, and had no way of knowing what was happening at home. I drove down on both Thursday and Friday to feed our animals at their foster farm, and on Friday morning I was able to drive almost to our house before the water stopped me. I parked next to the barricade, and hopped out with my camera. Here's a picture of the road that runs past our private drive just 700' north of our property. I was standing in about 1 1/4" of water when I took the photo, and could go no further in my little slip-on barn boots. Next time, (for we now know that there will most likely be a next time), I will take my knee high Wolverines along when I leave. I'm facing west here, so the end of our road is to the left just where the road curves. The county road takes a serious dip just after this tee, so it wasn't possible to enter our road from either direction at that time. I couldn't see our property from here, not even through the trees, but when we drove in on Saturday afternoon, judging from the muddy water line on the lawn, it appeared that the water had stopped at least 6' from the foundation all around the house, and perhaps as much as 8-10'. Things could definitely have been much worse. Here's a shot of the slough that runs through the property across the street from us and under the bridge I was standing on when I took the previous picture.

We plan to keep our animals at our friend's farm for at least another week or two. We have cleanup to do in the fields and the animal sheds need to be mucked out and power washed. Also, there's a chance the warmer weather that has returned will cause further melting of the snow in the mountains, and another round of flooding. Moving the animals is not fun for them or for us, so we'd rather err on the safe side than have another traumatic morning like we had last week. By the time I remembered to take pictures at the foster farm, it was late in the day, but here are a couple of shots of the boys getting reaquainted with their friends from last winter:

Here is our Marco, on the left, greeting Sue's boy Paco, who is a half-brother to Marco's mother, Flo Jo. Their mother was the late Tiger's Princess. Paco, formerly named Rocky was sired by Fir Cove Chocolatey, as was Ricky, shown below with Sue.

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In the shot below, Coco Puff, Charles, and Marco are eyeing the hay in the next stall. As you can probably see, Charles was pretty stressed.

Puff and Marco really do have eyes, by the way! About five minutes after I took this picture, Sue and I gave all three of them haircuts, much to their (and our) combined irritation and relief.

Here is Sue with Ricky.
The lighting was poor; he is almost white, and has inherited his mom's huge and beautiful dark eyes.