Merry Christmas!!

We wish everyone a blessed & peaceful Christmas!

Heifer Records

It's been an interesting & tough morning. An aspect of my job I had not anticipated was the responsibility of changing the records for my grandparents who have passed away. Heifer has a huge database that keeps track of records for all donors. My aunt pointed out to me that G-maw & G-paw have been receiving duplicate Heifer mailings. So, I combined the duplicate records & as we just made G-maw new return address labels with only her name, I also changed the Heifer mailing title to simply, "Mrs. Mary Winston." No more Bruce Winston. This caused me to look up the record for Mr. & Mrs. Edward A. Gowey--technically a record I should delete from the database, but I can't yet. It's touching to look back & see that their last gift was to support my Heifer bike ride to Portland, the summer before Grandma died.
Who knew the Heifer donor database would make me cry?

Christmas Traditions

I love this time of year, the joy & anticipation of greeting Christmas. It's sad that the holidays are a stressful, hectic time for so many people--let's find the peace!
A few holiday traditions...
Holiday Brunch with my girlfriends Jen & Kelly & their families.
We've celebrated together three or four years running now.
Here's Levi with Eden.

And me with Payton.

And all the girls!

Celebrating Christmas at the Gowey house in Lake Forest Park is a long-standing tradition. My grandparents moved into the house when my mother was four years old, so the traditions span decades & generations. This year will be very different, as both my grandparents are gone, but we're celebrating the traditions that center around their house, as this may be the last Christmas we spend in it. Sunday evening a number of us gathered to put up & decorate the tree (cut from the property, as tradition), line the santas on the mantle, & set up the creche with the lit star. We drank cocoa & sat by the fire & looked forward to the day that all 40 something Goweys will gather together to celebrate Christmas. I look forward to the day & hurt at the same time, because of the absence of Grandma Donnie & Grandpa Ed.

And last night my friend Liz & I met at Swanson's for our annual Christmas outing. I believe we started this tradition the year that Liz's father passed away, 1999, & have gone almost every year since. It's amazing how much the nursery has changed & we've enjoyed the addition of the Christmas reindeer.

Goofing around with hats at the gift shop. This photo is for all you owl lovers out there. It's a children's hat, but I also thought it would make a spiffy tea cozy.

My 'Lizabeth & me.

Cross Country Skiing

Fun day...tired.
My friend Joy & I went cross country skiing today up at Snoqualmie's Cabin Creek. I've never really been any kind of skiing before & Joy was a great teacher.
Here she is, showing me how it's done.

So pretty.

I tried out some "butt skiing" on a couple hills. I had quite a few hilarious falls, but I can honestly say that I spent more time skiing on the snow than in it.

Yeah, I got up!! The hardest thing about falling is getting back up again. Joy said I was a quick learner. :)

Chehalish Mucking

We had a very muddy, very rewarding day yesterday.
On Tuesday, I got word from a friend & longtime Heifer volunteer that her friends in Chehalis had been hit hard by the flooding--Brad & Meg of the Black Sheep Creamery. They donated cheese for the recent Heifer art reception & are a big accomplishment in small scale dairy, as they are Grade A certified (very difficult to do when you're small) & had just begun to receive national attention for their cheese. My friend & volunteer, Gretchen, sent out an email for help & we were happy to be able to respond. Thankfully, another volunter, Carla, coordinated the work party efforts & we ended up with nine people heading down to Chehalis for the Heifer International Work Party.
Read more about the Creamery & their flood story, here. Under "Musings" you'll find their experiences from the flood & the aftermath.

Here's Boo & Bet, all ready to work in their waders.

Mucking out the barn was a huge job--with manure & hay saturated with mud, everything was heavy & stinky!

All of the dead livestock had already been removed, but while we were shoveling out the barn I did come across a dead rat!

Towards the end of the day, the barn was completely mucked out & rinsed down. Brad & Meg worked all day in the house, & were very grateful for everything accomplished in the barn, as they would not have been able to get to it for at least another month.

Everything on the farm--the barn, the house, the creamery, the out buildings--had water reach up to 30 inches & leave behind 4 to 12 inches of mud. The hay caked onto the fence in front of the farmhouse is evidence of how high the water rose.

Here's the "field" behind the barn.

There was a tractor working all day, moving mud around & hauling the piles of muck we were clearing out from the barn.

This is the actual creamery, where the cheese it made. The cheese is stored in a separate "cheese cave", which broke free in the water, but was stopped from floating away by the fencing that Brad had finished building just a month prior. Thankfully, their stock of cheese (their income) was saved--neighboring Beecher's Cheese sent a truck to load it up & they will store & care for it until the Gregorys are once again able to house it themselves.

Here's the river directly behind the farm. It rose so fast they had to be rescued from their home by boat.

Carla clearing wood out of the barn.

Moving all the damaged wood to the burn pile (with the cool old barn in the background).

The bonfire was huge!

Levi testing out the depth of the mud in the "temporary lake" across the road from the farm.

Half of our Heifer International Work Crew.

After seeing & hearing the horrific stories from the flooding, it was incredible to get out this weekend & really pitch in. I was amazed at the resilience of the community, as we drove by houses with entire contents on the front lawn & small lakes taking up residence in people's backyards. I admire Brad & Meg so much for their commitment to their farm--there's definitely a part of all of us that would look at the 6 inches of muck covering everything (including the first floor of the house) & throw up our hands in futility & walk away. While living on a flood plain is dangerous, major floods are few & far between. The muck is river silt, rich in nutrients. As it is turned & moved, it will dry out & become part of the landscape, providing rich soil for numerous crops. It was so hopeful to watch the volunteer cars line up along the road, to work side by side with a dozen other people donating their time & labor, to see the stranger come by offering pizza at dinnertime, & to hear the neighbors announce they would be back tomorrow to continue the work.
Our Heifer volunteer group will stay in touch with the Gregorys & put together another group when they need help rebuilding fencing & preparing for lambing in the spring. Of the 23 sheep that survived, the majority are ewes expecting lambs in the spring. We hope to continue to help the Gregorys so that the ewes can come home & bare the renewal generation at the Black Sheep Creamery.

After the Flood

View from my office window this afternoon.

While some places in the city bely anything has happened, our little corner definitely has evidence of flooding. Simonds Road on the Kenmore side is still closed down. Our parking lot was drained last night by a big water-sucking truck, but we are left with multiple inches of muck.
I met a new neighbor yesterday & heard how our diversion of water away from her place just barely saved the crawl space from overflowing & filling her living room. I was so happy to know that no water made it into our residents houses.

Buy an Ark for Christmas...

Here in the PNW, you just might need one.
We had all kinds of water adventures today (& as I write this, it is raining steadily again). Levi got up early & made it to work in Woodinville just fine. Once there, he found three-and-a-half feet of standing water against their loading dock doors. He said he won't be surprised if they find stranded fish once the water finally goes down.
I ventured out around 9:30am to see if I could make a quick trip to the office to get a couple things. Simonds Road was already pretty flooded & I sat in the backup at the light for twenty minutes before giving up & turning around--good thing I did!
I settled in to work from home until I saw my neighbor head outside with a shovel & a grim expression. I geared up & headed out to discover that our parking lot was completely flooded, the water having made it into some people's garages & encroaching upon their front doors. The stream that gave us trouble last winter was holding its banks just fine behind our house. But across the street on Simonds, it burst the banks & flooded onto the road, flowing directly down our street & into our parking lot like a river.
I headed off to Home Depot with a neighbor to get sandbags & told Levi to hurry home from work. He arrived shortly & we spent the afternoon digging the walkway to the slough into a waterway to drain the parking lot & keep water out of people's homes.
Check out the photo below--behind Calvin, see the brown river flowing through our cul-de-sac?

The parking lot around midday today.

The river flowing into our complex.

Digging the water trench deeper (not easy when the soil is clay).

Here's our waterway to run everything off into the wetlands.

Once again, the flooded parking lot.

Standing in front of the houses with the highest water level. Their garages were flooded & we were checking to make sure their front doors were still safe.

Towards evening the problem was finally being fixed from the source. You probably won't recognize the street below, but that's Simonds Road looking west. Once there was enough sandbags, they were able to block about half the flow from the swollen creek & divert it from flowing down our street to flowing down Simonds & then into the slough.

Here's the view from where the creek broke its banks & overflowed the road.

Now at 7pm, things are looking better, although we're concerned about how much rain we'll get tonight. We've found & uncovered some of our drains & the water level in the parking lot has dropped. Much of the runoff has to do directly with all the construction up the hill from us--now that the water has drained a little, we can see the four inches of silt & muck left behind.
We are certainly blessed with the location of our unit--we are in an ideal spot with no water getting too close to our garage or front door, & barely any water in our crawl space.
There are so many people throughout the area who have fared far worse than we have.
We'll see what tomorrow brings. For now we're very happy to be in our warm, dry home with some dinner & ibuprofen. We hope you all are faring well.
And while I was kidding about literally needing an Ark, Heifer does actually have one--Gift of an Ark.

Snow Update

We are now at Boo & Bet's in Bellevue, because we lost power soon after I made the last post. We were all cozied up on the couch, just starting a River Runs Through It, & bright lights flashed up the whole outdoors & the house went dark. A transformer blew--two blocks down the street from us the power is still on!
Hope everyone is staying warm & cozy!

Snow Weekend!

Friday night was a small gathering at the Jolly Roger in Ballard. A fun evening of remembering yet again why we love their holiday brew so much. The rowdy evening will come after Christmas, when our good friend Forbes is visiting.

Just as it started snowing midday today, we headed out with both mountain bikes on the car to check out the new course that was built under the I-5 freeway between Capitol Hill & Eastlake.
It's pretty cool & a great place for bikers near the city. It actually stays mostly dry year-round because it is literally under the freeway. I had some concern about the homeless people that the project undoubtedly disturbed & possibly even misplaced.
Here's Levi on some of the course. I rode a little, but not much of it, as we discovered it is not the style of riding that we are used to.

It was gorgeous to get out today & see the snow on Capitol Hill. We settled in this evening with Thai food from our favorite local restaurant & as I write this at 6:30pm, the snow is coming down very thick! Here's Calvin & me checking it out.

Goodnight Story