First of all, thanks to everyone for the feedback on the photos! I think #4 is the winner. I might add another too, though, maybe the one where we're riding in front of the white fence.

I feel so bad for all the people who are getting flooded right now. I can't imagine how heartbreaking it would be to have your house go underwater. Or worse yet, your horse.

My kids had a "flood day" today. So weird... Haven't had one of those before. Driving to town, it was really shocking to see how flooded the flat was where our creek meets the Palouse river. I've never seen it that bad, although I know it has been worse, but that was before my time.

Here are some pictures I took of our creek yesterday and today. The flooding had already started yesterday, but was nothing compared to today. Big difference!

Yesterday:

Today:

Yesterday:

Today:

Yesterday:

Today:

These next two are the crossing. Not crossing there right now!
Yesterday:
Today it would be over Tonka's head:
I took this picture yesterday because I thought it was interesting that something was chewing on the bark.
Look at it today:
So far the creek is staying in its banks here on our place, but the pastures are flooded anyway from their own melt and water coming down through them from the hills above. Nothing terrible, and this happens every year so it's nothing new to us.

India got to go to the vet today. (Like I needed another vet bill.) She has anal gland issues. What fun! Luckily it's an easy (if gross) thing to fix. Steve said he'd show me how to do it so I wouldn't have to keep bringing her back if it continues.

Look how happy she was later:

She gave me a bit of a scare though. She's part whippet, which is a sighthound, and she's easily distracted, as you can see from the pictures. She likes to chase things that move. She went right up to the bank of the creek and started watching chunks of ice go by, and I think she might have jumped in if I hadn't gotten her attention.

Well, I better quit procrastinating and get some housework done.

Today was a work filled day. First I fed, of course. Then I found a ladder and picked apples and pruned the tree out front. Oh, I got one last pear too, but I didn't get around to pruning that tree (0r any of the other apple trees). I need an orchard ladder, trying to set a regular ladder on uneven ground is not fun.

Here's my little harvest (yeah, a little bug eaten, but maybe I can cut the bad parts out and make apple butter):

Liam and I did some mowing after that. I did some and then we went out in the pasture and Liam sat on my lap and drove. People are going to wonder why on earth we have such a squiggly mow pattern just in the middle of one pasture. He didn't know he wasn't doing it right or that it really didn't need mowing, he was being big and getting some work done!

Then I put up temporary fence so the horses can't get into the pasture. They've eaten it down to nubbies. So now they're in a decent sized winter enclosure. While I was at it I picked up a wheelbarrow load of poop and took it out of there.

After that I fixed some insulators that had come loose. With Horseguard fencing you use zip ties to put the insulators on the T-posts. Do not use white zip ties! They will become very brittle and break. I guess it's been four years, so they did last a while, but the black ones are not breaking like the white ones are. Glad we didn't use many white ones. I ended up breaking them on purpose today and replacing them so I wouldn't have to do them one at a time throughout the winter.

When John got home he started filling the big water tank. While he was doing that I took the mower and its cart in to clean up more horse poop. Scout thought this was great fun! Bella and Tonka checked it out and then left, but Scout had to hang around and chew on stuff and stand where I was trying to scoop. He's so helpful. He tried to follow the mower out the gate, but I managed to stop him just before he escaped.

Then we went to water. Can't do all the trees in one day, we might empty our cistern. So we just did the ones on this side. Probably about a hundred and ten trees. I need to count, I keep forgetting.

Katia filled the buckets from our wonderful new tank, which we can't find an adapter for so we can hook a garden hose up to it.

John and I took the water to the trees. We did a little bucket filling too. It was a lot of fun, all of us working together.

Liam, he wasn't exactly working. The kid LOVES dirt.

Reflection of an alder.

The Deep Creek Project. I've decided to finally start using the labels option on my blog and my first one will be for this project. So if you want to follow the progress over time, you can hopefully do that somehow. There should be a place to click certain labels on the sidebar so you can see what you're interested in. Eventually I'll go back and do that for the older entries as well, so you can see all about Tonka, or my cats, or whatever.

PCEI is doing the work. Palouse Clearwater Environmental Institute, that is. It's partially funded by some other groups. If you want more info on that you can check out their site.

The basics - they're sloping and stabilizing the banks along our section of creek to control erosion, planting trees to provide shade, and well, that's about it... It's supposed to help water quality, especially important because our creek joins the Palouse river just about a mile or less downstream. Oh, and they also created a few small wetland areas. Two are at the end of drainage ditches. This'll help filter any contaminants out before the water flows into the creek.

So, what can a girl do with 7 buckets, a 50 gallon barrel, and a truck? Break her back! No, just kidding, I only watered some trees. The ones we first planted needed some attention.
Unfortunately I forgot I can't dip a 5 gallon bucket into the barrel. Doesn't fit. So I had to fill buckets by dipping in a couple small coffee cans. Fun... I think I'm really going to beg John to get a 275 gallon water tank I can attach a hose to.

After I was done I played around in the creek to get some pictures for you. Here are some deer prints, a coyote print, and maybe some racoon prints? Or who knows, maybe the beaver. I'm not an expert tracker.

Eww, somebody lost their ear! Just kidding, it's a shell. We have clams down there too, but I didn't see any shells. I think my neice gathered them all up.

Here's a beautiful bit of architecture. I suspect this is where my son's really, really bad sting came from. It swelled up like a baseball and the whole area was a big purple bruise for weeks. It's a pretty nest though. I don't know if we should try to get rid of it or not...

This is one of the "wetlands" or "swales." Not sure which to call it. It'll catch water that flows down through our front pasture. Actually the horses only have contact with about 100 feet of the ditch, so the water shouldn't be too gross.

A stalker's view of my house, taken by John from the other side of the creek.

Here's Scout wondering what I'm doing way out there. He's a cutie.
Here's what I was doing, besides taking pictures. Had to pick up my temporary fencing and the trough that was out there. I think next time I water trees I'll use the trough to carry my water. Easier to dip buckets into. Good old Thor, I love that truck:

Now I'm going to go take a bunch of ibuprophen, get a dose of coffee, and get into my painting clothes. We've made almost zero progress in the last week.