Sunday, September 15, 2013

Preparing for flood waters

Good Morning Everyone,

I am sorry for the huge gap in posting but I am sure everyone knows about what is going on here with my life and the parents and just general everyday going-on's.

I first want to post that we may be getting the deluge of rain that Colorado has gotten, and it will come by way of the South Platte river which is north of me and we also have another river to the north of town called "North Platte" river which comes out of Wyoming and the two rivers meet just to the east of town to fully form the South Platte river system. The community sits right between both of them, (thank you Union Pacific railroad for planning this when you built the railroad through here).   We have been watching very closely, what is going on and  may have to make plans about moving or evacuate.  I hope not, but we do not know.  I know, I just moved and this comes up. I am also concerned as my dad's care center is right next to the South Platte river and they may move the residents somewhere else.  I would not want to move my dad with his ill tempered attitude.

I have just left the Eco Cat Lady's blog, she is on my blog list, and she is ok, which I am very happy about.  I wasn't sure where she was at in Colorado, so she is ok.  But she mentioned to me in comments that Ft Morgan, which is located somewhat east/north east of Denver, that it is flooding at the moment and Ft Morgan is about 3 hours from me, so we'll just keep an eye on things and hope for the best and plan for the worst. I will keep you posted what is going on.

Other that hoping that we will not get our feet wet, or do the back stroke, not much is going on. I have been canning, and making salsa, and just putting up the tomatoes that are finally turning.  I know by the end of September, the plants will be done for, they are already turning brown and sad looking on the bottoms.  We also had a small hail storm about two weeks ago, and we had golf ball sized hail and that did not help either, though they rode  through it pretty well, the plants did get pounded into the ground some.  This was not a good year for tomatoes around here, though they did ok and taste really good, I am going to plant different varieties since I have a garage where I can put up my greenhouse and lights and heat mats and start better plants that way.  What I planted this year was just what I could find because we were moving at that moment in time,  many people planted gardens and then it got very cold and wet for Spring, and then had to re-start gardens and there just was not any plants left anywhere in the town at any  place, including Wally, so it was just whatever you could get your hands on. Hopefully next year, I will plan a better garden, since I just threw in willy-nilly what ever I could get in the ground, which is not the way to garden if you want something to grow, though, willy-nilly sometimes works too!

I just placed a couple of small pork tenderloins in the little crock pot, with some new potatoes, and some green beans that I froze earlier this summer for supper.  Its been hard to do meals with all that is going on with parent duty, I swear now that they have reverted back to being young, around 12-15 years old now.  My dad is totally being a butt now, and demands to be home, his doctor has called me several times in the last few weeks to inform me that as he sees his medical info from the care center, that is not going to happen.
He is losing weight by several pounds a week, he's very frail and  he is a terrible eater, he has tantrums, he is a very high risk fall victim and just will not behave in any way, shape or form.  My mother just cannot handle him, and she is bad enough for me to handle as it is now.  I am just so saddened to see both of them basically melt away into nothing.  I am waiting for the doctor's report sometime this week to see if my dad is considered incompetent to make decisions and if so, I will be proceeding on with guardianship of him for now, and mother, later.  D will go with dad on Tuesday to this particular doctor appointment as an extra ear, the doctor did not want me there as he felt it would be a threat to dad that I was doing bad things to him, which I am not, but he just cannot think anymore about anything with common sense.  He thinks that he can go right back to driving, and behaving just as before, and he has even forgotten that he broke his hip, and was even home for those three weeks before he did break the hip, so this is was I am battling now.Onward and upward.

Well,  I smell the supper in the office, and I had better get off my fanny and put the potatoes on and get the beans ready.  Its nice when you have some appliances that help cook dinner and you do not have to stand over the stove and watch. 
I will keep posted on the flooding and water watch.  I have been buzzing around to see if I can find anything on the web for flood water in our state.  My state is not too good at warnings until its almost up on your heels, so I prefer to be alert on my own thank you very much.  Remember Katrina, the gov will not be there for you.

Have a wonderful week to all.
Love and Hugs



9 comments:

  1. Dear Denim ~ Now you will have me watching your weather. I didn't realize you would be getting any of this, and I do hope you just get rain and no flooding.

    With all that you've been through with moving and caring for your folks, I think you've done very well with the willy-nilly garden you planted and now are canning. Way to go girl!

    Love and hugs to you ~ FlowerLady

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  2. I'm so sorry you're having to deal with this flooding situation on top of everything that's going on in your life right now. When it rains, it pours, right? (yuk, yuk)

    If it's any consolation, it's been a crummy gardening year here in Denver too. Everything got such a late start because of our mid-May snowstorms, and then it's been boomeranging every other month between scorching hot with no water and cooler than normal with lots of rain. Oh well, there's always next year! I think I may have to give the greenhouse thing a go. Grow lights in the garage sound like an excellent idea!

    Anyhow, this news site has pretty comprehensive coverage of the floods in Colorado, so it might be of some help:
    http://www.thedenverchannel.com/flood-coverage

    The USGS also has great information on the levels of most of the major rivers and streams:
    http://waterwatch.usgs.gov/

    Unfortunately it doesn't look like there are many monitoring stations between Ft. Morgan and where you are.

    Here's the page for Ft. Morgan - scroll down to see the water level graph:
    http://waterdata.usgs.gov/co/nwis/uv?site_no=06759500

    And for Roscoe (looks like that's pretty near where you are?):
    http://waterdata.usgs.gov/ne/nwis/uv?site_no=06764880

    Anyhow... I hope some of that helps. Stay safe and take care of yourself!

    xoxoxo,
    Cat

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    1. p.s. Here's a link to the NOAA site:
      http://water.weather.gov/ahps2/index.php?wfo=bou

      They seem to have more monitoring stations along the Platte than the USGS does.

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  3. Poor you. There's nothing worse than having your house flooded. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you!

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  4. Thank you Eco. I will check this this morning. The local news is just now starting to talk about the water....I know that the tiny village of Roscoe, which is east of Ogallala NE is very low and I am sure, as from past flooding, it will flood. Also, Big Springs, and east of us, Brady.
    I will check this site, thank you again. You are up on this more than I am.

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    1. Just FYI - the news just reported that flooding is starting in Julesburg.

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    2. We just got more local news on the 6 pm news now. They are talking 14 ft levels here, not sure when? I went to the NOAA site and am watching this also. Where I live, there is a bridge that goes over the South Platte and this bridge has never had flood testing. It is only 2 yrs old and so I guess its the ol' wait and see bit. Hope the Army Corp did a good job!
      If you hear anything, just post here or email me.
      Thank you for your time in letting me know.
      Hugs to you

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  5. I hope you'll be ok. We're getting torrential rain this morning but according to the weather station, it won't be lasting long. We are grateful for the moisture, as we haven't had a drop in two months and it has been unseasonably warm.

    I'm getting tomatoes again, too. I'm really glad I kept things alive through the summer because the tomato plants couldn't keep up with Hubs' tomato appetite and I didn't get enough to do anything else with. Maybe I will have fall tomatoes, unless we get an early freeze.

    I've sent you a couple of emails with no answer. If you don't want to, that's ok, I just wanted you to know that I was glad to see your comment on my new blog and I'm sorry if it was hard for you to find me but I did send you an email with a link in it when I sent to Glenda and Paula. The search bots still aren't doing a very good job of finding my blog, maybe it just takes time.

    Stay safe. XOXOXOXO

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  6. I so hope the floods don't affect you! I watch the news and just cringe for those poor people. You don't need any additional troubles these days.

    I don't know how you manage everything. Your parents are very lucky to have you caring for them.

    Gardening is over here.....we didn't get the rains that Ilene got....just a drizzle. We still have a chance this week. No rain here for over 30 days now.

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