The Internet is compromised. I write nothing sacred or secret any more. And my emails are lame and vanilla.
OMG!
Those are early closing times!
WHEEW!
Laura's message...
I’ve been evacuated to Estes Park and free shuttle this afternoon to Denver. Gary is in Las Vegas, his cousins are going to come get me.
I was having a good time, house is fine, and I had all the comforts of home with the generator. They said on TV no more rescues today, so I delayed draining my water system, and now it’s probably going to freeze over the winter.
However, I did clean out the fridge and freezer, even shop vacced out the water in the bottom of the freezer.
They gave me 10 minutes to get it together, including catching the cat. Damn! That plumbing is going to bug me! I had the air compressor ready to hook to a hose on the outside faucet and a hose on the water heater to drain it. The hot water heat has antifreeze, so it will probably be okay. Maybe we’ll have a warm fall.
I did manage to blow out the pipes of the Brown Palace yesterday (long story about that). It’s raining hard again today, and the river will no doubt rise, but maybe no higher than before. Some water got into the living room and kitchen, but not too bad. Water broke a hole in the foundation next to the fireplace and ran straight through the crawl space, maybe saving the house. There is a permanent new stream just outside the living window and I was surprised the front porch didn’t get washed away, but the corner posts seem to be supported by good large rocks.
Rabbit Creek was running at least 10 feet deep, overflowing the end of the culvert, and it gouged out all the dirt and sand right in front of the concrete drive so we couldn’t drive the cars out even if there was a place to go. The bridge is still there and seems steady, but the dirt washed out at each end, the far end was a waterfall of water from Rabbit Creek and the driveway over there is five feet lower than the bridge. The fishing bench is caught on the arch by the red cabin. The red cabin is still there, but probably got wet inside. I couldn’t get over to look at it until they were hustling me out.
The bank outside the dining room window was getting cut away by the water, so I put an old wheelbarrow down there to break up the waves. It didn’t get a true test because the river went down, but I think it did some good. It has an old garden hose tied to it, and wrapped around a tree so we can retrieve it. When I cleaned out the refrigerator, I threw all the food into the river. I handed a box of food to the fireman and he said Ma’am, we can’t take too much stuff, as if he was afraid I was trying to save my groceries. I said, No, throw it in the river. He no doubt thought that was non-environmental , but hell, there’s been whole houses go down that river in the last couple of days. So he set the box on the bank, and I went out there and threw it in myself.
There are probably a lot of things I didn’t get around to doing, but I got 90% of my winter checklist done. This is the first time the cabin will have to go through a winter without heating, and who knows how it will do. I had the fireman shut down both propane tanks (generator and house).
I had put out my sign so they wouldn’t rescue me too soon by chopper, and the fireman gathered it up when I sent him out to shut off the propane.
That’s it. And the cat is fine.
We are. She sounded confident that the property was high and dry. The power and phone services have been severely disrupted.
I still call it a 'pound sign.' I had Twitter for a year (so did Hobbes) and quit. It is far to time-consuming and invasive. I don't ever walk down the street looking at a cellphone and I don't use it in public. Bad manners.
Sunday a.m....SPARKY REPORT: Doctor just called. Sparky ate overnight and is in perfect spirit (for a cat with a catheter up his bum.) The doc really likes the little guy. Unless there is a change the surgery will commence tomorrow in the late morning.
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