For a couple of days things were really heating up with our river coalition. The consultant sent out a spreadsheet and someone found an error in the math, so that generated about 40 emails with 20 versions of the spreadsheet attached. I think they finally got it fixed, but I suppose I still have to check it for myself.

I was converting some of their other data to go into my database (not an easy chore), and discovered yet another error that resulted in overstating the costs of restoration by $30 million. I really hated to bring it up after what went on before.

There is a core group of old guys who set up this coalition to get government funding for their own projects. They need the rest of us so they can say they are collaborating with the landowners, but every single bit of money obtained to date has benefitted this small group of people. And no end in sight. The rest of us are aware that they are really the power of the coalition, but haven't gotten angry enough to quit.

Just lately they let more of the landowners join the coalition - when all the grant requests have been submitted so the core group has the future money sewed up. Today one of the core sent an email that he wants to invite some cute gal from The Nature Conservancy to sit in on our next meeting. So his pal number one sends an email to everyone: 'we will welcome her input,' and crony number two sends an email to everyone: 'I'm delighted she is joining us.' And then one of the new people thinks that is the thing to do, so she sends an email: 'I'm looking forward to working with her.' And I decided nuts to this, so I sent an email: 'why do people think we need to vote on this? We've had people come sit in on the meetings before without it generating 30 emails to get it done.' That nipped that little love fest in the bud. Kiss ups.

Today a house mover came to look at elevating my red cabin above flood level. I can tell he knows what he's doing, and that makes a big difference over hiring someone with a front end loader who thinks they can hoist one end and put some bricks under it, then go to the other end and hoist it. I have no idea what it will cost, I'm hoping not more than $20,000. The front part is a traditional log cabin with the rough logs inside, built in 1910, and the back part where the kitchen, laundry, and bath are was built in 1937. It is in bad shape because some of it is below grade, and the wooden structural members have started rotting away.

I was looking at a study about how people deal with recovery after natural disasters and one of the findings was that even though they indicated their living conditions were improved in the process of recovering from the flood, more than 50% of them didn't think it was worth the inconvenience. I can agree with that.


See the cornbread to the right? Eloise is invisible, and when the birds or squirrels come to get it, she will pounce. She's never caught one of them there, usually hunts in the tall weeds - more sporting, but for some reason she thought she'd hang out there for awhile the other day.