Bad storm last night

More fricking storms and instead of the river gauges going down, they have once again started going up. I was going to run gravel and fix the main causeway and get multiple trees off the road......hell, I cannot even get onto the main causeway as the river is returning. Climate change is a fricking reality and to all the numbskulls who think that a 110 years of river levels lie, I have some swampland to sell you......the state of Florida.

2seaoat wrote:More fricking storms and instead of the river gauges going down, they have once again started going up.  I was going to run gravel and fix the main causeway and get multiple trees off the road......hell, I cannot even get onto the main causeway as the river is returning.   Climate change is a fricking reality and to all the numbskulls who think that a 110 years of river levels lie, I have some swampland to sell you......the state of Florida.

When are the boys coming?

2seaoat wrote:More fricking storms and instead of the river gauges going down, they have once again started going up.  I was going to run gravel and fix the main causeway and get multiple trees off the road......hell, I cannot even get onto the main causeway as the river is returning.   Climate change is a fricking reality and to all the numbskulls who think that a 110 years of river levels lie, I have some swampland to sell you......the state of Florida.

How would you have handled a mile high glacier like there were just 10k years ago... or years without a summer like there were a few hundred years ago? You've just become an alarmist about all common sense.

That's a conditioned response btw... not normal... you're a victim of confirmation bias.

When are the boys coming?

Tonight. We plan to take them to a rodeo Saturday, and a carnival on Sunday.

2seaoat wrote:When are the boys coming?  

Tonight.  We plan to take them to a rodeo Saturday, and a carnival on Sunday.

..

Enjoy....I had my 10 year old grandson today. I got him a new rod and reel and a lure....Bait and Tackle loaded the reel and fixed us up. He caught a ton of seaweed but had fun pulling it up. We got some good shots....he was leaning back and the pole bent...you can always say "the big one got away". He laughed about that one.

My son and his wife and the boys are here, and I am going to get a pizza. They are excited about the rodeo Saturday, and they are out in the gravel pile now looking for sponge fossils. Way too cool. Unfortunately, On July 12th I had my labs taken, and I was informed that one of the nurses screwed up the order so that I did not get my hormone test, and they want me to go back downtown. I just messaged them that I am fine doing the correct blood work on August 9th when I get my next shot. Of course they are going to tell me how important to get more scans and get the blood work as soon as possible....too funny, but we will do it August 9th as I explained there are no real treatment options left and no news is good news. I am going to take control of this and not jump and dance because they screw up. It is what it is.

Hate you didn't get the labs ordred. I have a follow up on Monday and need my labs drawn.. which I did not get done this week. I hate doing it on the weekend because they are so high...but lower than months ago.... one of the physicians will be notified of the panic level.

Made it to the porta potty. It did great. It also served as an ark for a bunch of animals who based on their poop were there for about a week. Design criteria actually did well in this flood. The next one might blow it away, but this one survived. Getting a semi of gravel in the morning, and will show flood status photos.

Yea! It made it.

What a mess. This flood will take at least a year for us to repair and restore the beauty of the islands. Most of the grass will have to be over seeded. We will need concrete repairs on the causeways, and thousands of dollars of gravel to repair the damaged roads. Our longest causeway acted as a dam. North of that dam is 100 feet of massive trees which will need to be removed over the next year as the fear is that the mass could completely blow out the causeway in the next flood. Silt deposits are on roads and everywhere. The soil conditioner will be working through labor day just to level the ground. It has been close to four weeks in some stage of the flood and the grass has rotted which gives the islands this horrible smell. We can only hope for another week of dry weather so I can try to get areas leveled and grass seed in the critical areas. The ground hogs, muskrat, raccoons, and coyote populations were destroyed. Climate change will increasingly impact every person's life.

It's you that must change... nature apparently has a different plan than you. Your arrogance is the problem.

I grew up as a kid with a row boat on a river where all the kids played on islands, fished, and swam. It is something which just takes over your entire existence. You become a river rat. My wife had a cottage on the same river I grew up, and at 5 years old she was out in the row boat, fishing, water skiing, and playing in the river. We met in college and our love of the outdoors drew us together. I will never give up, because with the roads, and causeways people can enjoy nature as we have created something very special. We will probably give the islands to the grandchildren in a life estate with the remainder interest going to the State of Illinois where the public will be able to enjoy this beauty of this natural area. I do not want to tie my wife's hands after I die, but she shares the desire to allow the public to eventually own these islands. Things may change rapidly now, but I strongly believe the physical work of maintaining these islands has extended my life. I play poker. You lose and you win. However, the river never bluffs, and the bad beat has become more frequent and more painful with each flood.

http://www.urbanghostsmedia.com/2015/01/10-lost-underwater-cities-ancient-world-sunken-civilisations/

I apologize for the bad angle of the photo.  It depicts our dock which I took an old school bus steel frame which had been abandoned on the islands, and I put it on top of two 5k lb floats.   It currently is sitting in the air on top of a tree stump.  You can just get a flavor of the power of the river.

I guess denial does sometimes come in the form of a river.


I have told this story on the PNJ, but I broke my arm in a basketball game in 8th grade, and a plaster cast above the elbow kept my arm in place. As river rats the ice was beginning to break and we had a water path to one of our favorite islands. During the winter floods, an old oil tank which was a five hundred gallon oval shaped steel tank had been deposited on the island we always played. We spent the next week building a boat on that tank. We got it into the river and had long poles and paddles where we expected to take it to the shore and use it all summer long once the ice melted. Of course I got on first with my plaster cast, and then a rather hefty friend got on and because it was top heavy it shifted and he freaked and jumped off the tank......when he did this the tank raised up and dumped me in the freezing water with my cast on as I started floating down the river toward the ice pack......if I go under the ice pack, I am toast. I got lucky and made it to the island, and we got in the row boat and made it home. That plaster cast smelled so bad that I had to spray right guard into the wrist end every day before school. Living your life every day gives one a sense of safety in modern America, but for river rats you completely understand the perils of life, and for that I have always been blessed. No big deal. We will spend some money and clean up and hopefully will enjoy friends and family enjoying the labor day weekend in four weeks.....the only denial is those poor souls which have not lived in nature and experienced the power of nature.

Enjoy

We have been working all day moving mud off the gravel roads, and took delivery of 3 yards of concrete which we repaired one of the causeways outer curb. The wife has been running gravel in the 1 ton dump and we have repaired and leveled the gravel on our second largest causeway. Causeway one we repaired and cleaned up last week. Causeway two has no damage. Causeway three we have been working on today and will get three more yards of concrete on Monday. I now have no doubts about how weak I have become because I could hardly push three yards down the chute let alone spread and finish. Mrs. Seaoat did most of it and the delivery driver got out and helped push the thick mix down the chute. I just simply gave out and usually a driver never helps on a job, but he has watched my decline over the years, and he knows I am nearing the end. His help was greatly appreciated. We got to the fourth causeway and pushed some trees off and it is now open. We had a porta potty get crushed by trees and we will see if we can salvage it, but overall this flood has only caused a couple thousand dollars of damage. We are not waiting to see if the grass will recover, or if we have to soil condition about ten acres and reseed. Most of the areas actually have the grass coming back, but some low areas have large silt deposits and will need to be conditioned and seeded. I will get photos this weekend, but I am too tired to get out of my chair right now, but very happy I did not drop dead this afternoon.

Bad up here last night too... it's barely going to get to 70 through next week.

More rain here.