ARCHIVE 2003

Skagit River Flood October 21, 2003 I thought living in the country was supposed to be relaxing! Life is finally returning to normal after the flood. The house was not in any danger as we're in the 180-year flood plain and this was "merely" a 50-year flood. Albeit the third one in 13 years. I uploaded a few pictures. They're not as dramatic as the ones on the news as it's hard to convey the power of 165,000 ft³/s of water and trees rushing past with a still photo. Ironically, we don't have TV so we only got a glimpse of the overall destruction while picking up a few things at Cascade Supply. We can't get AM radio reception either so we had to stay updated via the internet. Luckily, Skagit County has a good web site with flood information and the USGS has realtime gage data at the Dalles Bridge. The photo above is taken from our trail that normally heads down to the beach. The river is receding now, but for a while there, the "beach" was about 100 ft. closer than usual! The river crested at 42.2 (28 is flood stage) and this was taken a few hours after. Stay dry! Keith, Saara & Annie Wednesday, October 22, 2003 Finally an Update! "My DSL should be in next Wednesday night" ... Famous last words! I wrote that expecting DSL service on 8/27. I *finally* got my DSL moved here on 9/29 although they didn't claim it to be working until 10/1! Despite my aggravation, I do have to say that Verizon has the best support people I've ever had to deal with. Unfortunately for them, their system sucks, doesn't give them the proper feedback and, in some cases, doesn't even work! Just in case you ever need this knowledge, currently you cannot *move* your DSL service. It has to be downgraded to dial up, moved, and then upgraded. Too bad their system doesn't error when you attempt to move DSL. Those poor techs put up with me phoning every few days and were very patient. I think there's valium in the water at the support center. ;) It was all I could do to email drawings for work so I had to let my updating of this site slide. We were pretty busy anyway. I'll be trying to stay on top of it now. To make up for it all, I've uploaded 4 new pages of photos! First, I've got more pictures of scaffolding. Therein lies the secret to how we got the 21 ft. ceiling painted. Second, I posted pictures of the new paint job! All those crazy colors that people kept warning us were too dark. HAH! It's very cheery and colorful and should make surviving the long, dark, rainy winter easier. Thirdly, there's a page of logging photos. By selling 2 truck loads of cedar, we hope to recoup the expense of having some logging done. We're scheduled to log more this coming Saturday (10/11) and hope to be rid of a few looming maples. We should be set for firewood for the next few years! Lastly, I made a page of miscellaneous photos. We decided to do some construction which brought our painting to a screeching halt. We still need to do the "sunrise wall" and the complete upstairs. We're waiting on new windows, but hope to get back to it soon. Meanwhile Keith has insulated the water pipes underneath and we've moved a few more loads of stuff from the Anacortes house. We need to focus a bit on getting that ready to sell before it gets too late. The taxes on both places are going to hurt this month! Stay tuned! Keith, Saara & Annie Thursday, October 09, 2003 Paint and Polish! Got the camera and Keith back! The office has been painted and the dome roof has been pressure-washed. I'm also finished with the downstairs bathroom and the pantry closet. Now I've started on the kitchen and Keith put up scaffolding and has begun with the vapor barrier on the main ceiling. It's pretty smelly stuff so the whole place reeks of alcohol while he's painting and ammonia when he cleans up. So far the Wagner 990 power roller system is working well for that! I'm picking up some more colors today. I think the place is going to be like living under a quilt. We'll see. ;) Just got hold of Verizon today. My DSL should be in next Wednesday night so I will be moving my office then. I can't wait! I've added the office paint job and scaffolding images today along with a trip around the freshly washed dome. Also I stitched a panorama of the beach. Our property extends from the sandy spot on the left over just a bit past the grass on the right. The river level is incredibly low right now. Normally the waterline is at the vegetation. It'll be neat to see how this looks next year once we've had time to hang around and clean it up a bit! Stay tuned! Keith, Saara & Annie Wednesday, August 20, 2003 Progress continues! Keith is back in Boston and I'm taking a little break to work on the Anacortes house. Apparently I have to stay near the computer so he can phone me for directions when he gets lost looking for foosball tables. He stills needs his navigator, I guess. ;) We've finally gotten started on the painting. We've got vapor barrier painted up on the office, downstairs bath and pantry/closet so far. Keith has started on dotting drywall mud in the few corners with the old damage. I'm playing with the colors. There will be many. We picked up one of those power roller systems so we'll see how that goes. Meanwhile Keith is researching scaffolding to get him up to the ceiling (21 feet at the apex). Otherwise, he's been playing with his new-to-him chainsaw. He'll be a logger yet. Keith has the camera this week and the last batch of pictures got stuck on the CF card, but I put up a few shots from earlier anyway. Stay tuned! Keith, Saara & Annie Wednesday, August 06, 2003 It's been a bit hectic! Keith spent a week in Boston working and sight-seeing while I stayed home and scrubbed the floors! First I washed all the cabinets, wainscoting, and doors. Then I got on my hands and knees and scrubbed the oceans of oak flooring. We should buy stock in Murphy's Oil Soap. It was worth it as it looks great. Now to get back down there and oil it all! Conveniently, Keith is leaving for Boston again on the 17th. Seems a little coincidental. ;) The picture above shows the results of a hard weekend of labor with the help of Burton and Amy. Keith and Burton got the rotten part of the deck torn off, found a good structural beam underneath, and put up a temporary rail around the front porch. After we finish tidying up, we attack the workshop roof. Hopefully we'll be able to get a normal insurance policy when that is completed! Stay tuned! Keith, Saara & Annie Thursday, July 10, 2003 Well, we did it! We signed all the papers yesterday! Drove up after work and spent a bit of time cleaning and poking around. We had our first meal in the new house: burgers and onion rings from Birdsview Burgers. Yum! Keith got the water filters rinsed, but we'll need to replace them. We think he managed to lodge a piece of gunk in the lower bathroom faucet while he had the filters out. We'll have to wait to get back to fixing that when he returns from Boston. He leaves tomorrow for a week so I'll just be cleaning what I can in the meantime. I washed most of the windows on the lower level. It looks much brighter in there. Got a good start on vacuuming up spiders and spider parts too. Annie enjoyed the river so much that she got to spend the rest of the evening guarding the porch. Stay tuned! Keith, Saara & Annie Friday, June 24, 2003 Well, we're going to do it! We're buying the icosahedron in the rough! Since we'll be moving farther away from everyone and it's an interesting project, I thought I'd keep a little web log going here for everyone to be able to stay updated. It's going to be pretty busy from now until closing so not much will happen here until the middle of the summer most likely. Meanwhile I'll put up some pictures of the interior that I shot during inspection. Our weekends and money are both going to be tied up with this for a bit, but hopefully by August we'll be able to have a dome-warming party! We'll be painting, clearing, grubbing, and replacing the deck in addition to getting our square house ready for sale. Anyone interested in volunteering for work parties is invited to phone or email! ;) Stay tuned! Keith, Saara & Annie Friday, May 16, 2003 Back to the front