Yesterday I wrote about wanting to get down on the riverbank to rescue my dishtowel from the flood wreckage. It was too far to snag with a stick, so I put the extension ladder down in the hole and got down there. It wasn't as scary as I'd expected, but the ladder was definitely the solution because the bank is still very crumbly and I couldn't have gotten back up without it.



These trees fell down because the dirt supporting their roots washed away. I climbed down between the two on the right.

During the flood, when the bank started to slip into the river, I tried cramming some boards and sticks on the edge of the riverbank in an attempt to hold some of the dirt from falling into the river. Now they are frozen into the dirt so I couldn't get them out, and we'll probably leave them in place under added fill dirt.

When those boards didn't look like they were working, I decided to lower an old wheelbarrow down there to break up the wave action, on the same principle as putting old cars along a river bank to armor it against erosion.

I tied this hose to the wheelbarrow and around this tree so the flood couldn't carry it away.







It was too heavy for me to lower it hand-over-hand on the garden hose, so I put it on the edge, and it fell toward the water when the bank fell away.

The river was receding at that time, and I don't know if the wheelbarrow did any good, but it made me feel like I was doing something to help myself. It was down in the hole until a 5 weeks after the flood when some church volunteer college students pulled it back to dry ground.



This is another spot on the river bank near my house, not as bad as by my dining room, but it could have been a disaster if the rain had continued and the river stayed so high. There are places along the highway where whole mountainsides slipped into the river carrying huge trees and boulders with the dirt.

But anyway, I've got my dishtowel back!