Apparently I can't catch a good picture fromt he bow of the boat. It's fuzzy but here's a picture of the house on the second day after the peak flow during April Fools' Flood - that's my name for it. For a brief moment we pondered whether or not Meteorologists across the country would conspire to play such a joke as to tell the entire SE that they would be flooded during the week of April 1 and following... During this picture it's actually about a foot lower than the peak, but none the less, it's quite dramatic to realize the amount of water that flowed past my house.
I scheduled an appointment for my boys to visit the Pediatrician today. It's loads of fun to haul all three together and hear them place bets on who will get shots. This time it was L. He took them both in stride as M and S watched in wide eyed wonder. I totally respect our pediatrician. He is acquainted with my dad and all that we've done over the years as a family. He's the kind of guy that I'd want watching out for my kids health. I won't get into the vaccination debate. I'm a wimp and uneducated in such matters. Please comment all you want about it, but don't expect me to respond... Any way, that's not what prompted me to post tonight. Tonight it's all about boys. On FB I did a silly quiz about "how many kids will you have". Based on my answers, 3 girls. How could the 5 question quiz be so off? I'll never know. I talked with another mom - she has 5 kids- all but one are girls. They talk all the time. My boys wrestle and fight all the time. The fights aren't about anything real, just about anything that doesn't matter so they can get it off their chests. Then as I walked out of the office with the official estimate "L, if he keeps going, might grow to be 5' 8" or so by the time he's done." a nurse commented "all in a row" and made the motion like stair step kids. Before we left the house his friend came to visit and we discovered he'd grown by several inches (or so it seemed) since we last saw him - how could this be? Now he's a head taller than L now and taller than me.I also realized today, as we travelled around town that I have been really stressed lately. I had no idea how stressful flooding is to the victims - you think I'd know by now after 2 major (although they call it officially moderate) and several minor floods! This one really took it's toll on us and we are all as a neighborhood recovering as best we can. If you know someone who's been through any kind of flooding, lend them a hand - even a batch of cookies (even from the store) would make their day a little brighter. Reach out and touch them with a gesture of warmth and love. My folks wouldn't have us stay anywhere but their house in our time of need, but I know it's hard on them both. Hug someone who's helped displaced people.
Pray for a couple of teen boys who need a stable home before DCF places them in a foster home.
For the record, that's our mailbox on the left side of this picture. Yes - the water was over 3 feet above our road! Also pictured are two of our neighbors who kept our generator fueled up to keep our fridge running for Saturday - Tuesday!
We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindnesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over. –James Boswell from Life of Johnson, September 1777.
So when I first met MM he went on and on about this house. The house on the river. The house in which he grew up. The house he spent hours and hours playing without siblings. On and on the stories went. Before that though I remember returning from senior vacation with my dad and the Hwy 20 bridge across the Ochlocknee was closed and we had to detour through Quincy. I said “Those dang fools living on the river!”. I had no idea that less than 10 years later I’d be one of those fools. I think I even sang the song “Don’t build your house on the sandy land. Don’t build it too near the shore. It might be kinda nice, but you’ll have to build it twice, yes you’ll have to build your house once more…”
Today I sing a different song. It goes something like “Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise him all creatures here below. Praise Him above, ye heavenly host! Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.” It started last August when we learned how the different emergency agencies behaved during storms. It was very stressful. So last weekend when the river started to rise and MM was camping with L, at God’s prompting, I purged our basement (the first floor is supposed to stay empty) of junk and organized what was to stay down there (there’s a high shelf!). I felt silly on Saturday after cleaning the extra room in our house because the river didn’t rise in to the basement.
It wasn’t until Tuesday when I called MM back home from camping that I felt slightly vindicated. I drove home from town to begin preparing for the rain that was to come. About the time my neighbors and I gathered all our potted garden to our patios (tell me we don’t know that it’ll flood!) and emptied all the basement bottom shelves and makeshift tables from last weekend, MM shows up to handle all the man work. It seems the work never stopped. We believed we were ready for whatever would come. So much so that I brought our boys back to the house (L stayed out camping with my dad) on Wednesday. Why on earth would I bring them back except I think that we’ll stay at the house through the flood?
We woke up Thursday morning with the river over our driveway by about a foot or two. Wednesday it had been only ankle deep and rising. I worked on work a little while MM worked on miscellaneous things around the yard. The rain fell and the river rose. The kids played around the house (what’s not covered with stuff from the basement) and I worked on important things like clean dishes and clean floors. Oh, and then the electric company made an error and turned off our power instead of power across the river! I spent the afternoon making phone calls to restore our power and finally succeeded. After dinner with our neighbors (had to wade with kids on my shoulders to get there!), we waded back to go to bed.
You’d think that we’d have known the signs. When we went to bed the river was still rising. MM was scheduled to return to L and break camp on Friday. Certainly we could wait until morning and get out of the house safely – why didn’t we take the cars up the road before now? Then it’d just be a boat ride to the cars and we’d be to safety. It was 3 a.m. when I woke with a start and called the dam. The river is rising and not going down anytime soon. It was two inches up the wheels of our neighbor’s truck. Everyone must move their cars now. What possessed us all to wake up to walk their dog or call the dam can only be called God’s hand of protection. We didn’t know about the lower than our part of the road spots until Friday morning as we drove out of the neighborhood and encountered them with our truck and van. I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared in all my life. After we all made it out of the house and to the neighbors where we parked the boat trailer, MM and I had a moment – WOW. What on earth were we thinking?
I often wondered why our family doesn’t spend much time camping together. After all, the struggles you encounter as a family serve to draw you together as you search for solutions. Now I know why we don’t camp together (I just send Dad with one or more of them)- we encounter all our struggles together and find solutions as we live in our sometimes houseboat. Our family is being forged in the crucible of floods and life on the river!as of right now, the river is 26.11 feet. It was 23.71 or so when we were leaving. That's right - it's up to the mailbox bottom now and gently rising. We're taking refuge at my parent's. The water might not recede until next week after all the Sunday rain...And I really did say "This is life. If I thought it was supposed to be any different, I wouldn't live down here." For a copy of the picture see:http://www.tallahassee.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Avis=CD&Dato=20090402&Kategori=PHOTOS03&Lopenr=904020805&Ref=PH
Apparently I can't catch a good picture fromt he bow of the boat. It's fuzzy but here's a picture of the house on the second day after the peak flow during April Fools' Flood - that's my name for it. For a brief moment we pondered whether or not Meteorologists across the country would conspire to play such a joke as to tell the entire SE that they would be flooded during the week of April 1 and following... During this picture it's actually about a foot lower than the peak, but none the less, it's quite dramatic to realize the amount of water that flowed past my house.
