Busy Time & a Creek Crossing!

I was hoping to get some changes made to the blog, but I am not able to do what I want...not yet, anyway.

This is a very busy time for our family. We have been cleaning up the pad our RV is on...sorting through things. We are still finding things that have gotten moldy. Oh, well. Such is life sometimes.

Here are some pics of the creek crossing being worked on:

Photos & Video of Trees Down

These are trees by the river.








In the video, you can see that one is broken:

More Butterflies!

Here are some more butterflies we have found on our land. The little whitish colored ones are very plentiful.








These are not as plentiful, but there are still quite a few of them!

Other Bugs!

I have pictures of a couple of other bugs I found on our land. I don't know what they are.













This is a water bug in our creek:

Rocks & Fossils!

We have LOTS of fossils on our property. I don't have a lot of pictures, yet. Or I don't have them all sorted. However, here are a few of the interesting types of fossils we find.




We don't know what this one is. It reminds us of the tunnels carved out by some kind of worm.



This is a bunch of tiny shells and coral all pressed together.







This is a piece of coral.




We don't know what this is exactly, either.





We also have some nautiloids. I really need to get some pictures!

Grasshopper Up Close & Personal!

(MT & TW for survivors.)

I finally found a grasshopper the other day who would let me get closs enough to get some pictures! I cropped them down and blew them up for an "up close & personal" look.



He was resting away on a rock down by the creek.







Isn't this a face only a mother could love?? *smile*












This is a close up of the wing.






This is the hind leg.









This is the main body.






This is the front leg and foot.









This is the middle leg and foot.



















MT and TW for survivors.

Water Pressure!

This is the pressure regulator. We have incredible water pressure here. Plus, the contractor used a slighter smaller pipe to increase the water pressure because he figured we would need it with the water going uphill. *smile*

So, he put a regulator in for us to keep the water pressure from blowing the connections.



This is the meter. The red flowery looking thing to the left of the red needle is what spins if we have a leak. It is NOT spinning! Woohoo!!

Pictures of Sunset!

This is a sunset from our road.

Pictures of the Creek Crossing!

Dave has cut two channels through the creek crossing. The idea is to put two culvert pipes in the channels for the water to go through. A concrete slurry goes over that. When the water rises above the pipes, it will go over the slurry. There are many crossings like that around here. You can still drive across so long as the water is not too high and you know where the edge is.











This is the dam that Dave and Elias built to stop the flow of water through the first channel Dave wants to put the pipe through.

This is the entrance to the free-flowing channel.






This is where the two channels rejoin on the downhill side of the crossing.

Creek Crossing, Pulled Muscle, Vehicles & Septic!

It looks like Dave may have pulled a muscle last Saturday when he was working on the creek crossing. He is not sure, but he keeps experiencing pain when he moves a certain way. He is really hoping it won't keep him from working on it again this Saturday.

The nicer weather is coming. He really wants to be able to take his motorcycle to work. It will save us a lot in gas money and also leave me with a vehicle so that I can get to the library and park with our son once a week. He did say that he can find a way to get it across, but we cannot get the van across. I, too, hope that he can get the pipe in and slurry across it. It would be nice to be able to get the van across the creek, especially after grocery shopping!

We got a surprise tax return so we are trying to save everything we can from that to get a used vehicle so that we can sell the van. Selling the van would really help us out financially. We never intended to keep it when we took out a loan against it to put in our septic system. The plan was to sell the van and use the car, but then the car got totalled and we had no funds to replace it. We are trusting Yahweh to provide us with the right vehicle.

Speaking of septic systems...I do have some pics of ours going in. Hmmm...let me see what I can find!

Ahhh...here we go! Pictures of that necessity of life...the septic system!


Here is the wonderful tank where all the "stuff" goes.











These are the leach lines. For those unfamiliar with the process, the "stuff" slowly breaks down in the tank. When it gets to a certain level, it flows down into the leach lines and very slowly gets absorbed below the ground.









This is the view from the driveway going up to our pad where the RV is.

Creek Crossing and a Wet Camera!

Well, Dave has been working on our creek crossing...the drive through portion. One thing that makes is hard to accomplish what we need to do around here is that he has to keep fixing the crossing after every long or heavy rain. And boy, around here...it has been raining a LOT!

He is trying to get some concrete on the two sides that get washed out the worst. Eventually, he wants to get the whole thing slurried. Then there won't be any loose rocks to drive over or get pushed aside by the heavy flow of water.

I was out taking pictures of the work and of the various ways the water was flowing over the rocks. After seeing some online friends' photos posted, I was starting to get some ideas of pictures I could take for artistic purposes. In my mind, I was thinking about what I could look for and how to do it.

Well...there was an angle of flowing water that my son wanted to get a picture of. Since he had his mudders on and I did not, I handed him the camera. He was very careful to put the wrist strap on so he could not accidently drop it in the water. However, in the handoff back to me, I did not get a good enough grip and when I went to regrip he, he let go thinking I had a good grip. It was not his fault. If anything, it was more mine. The camera fell in the water.

I shook all the water out of it that I could...which was not that much, considering. So far, it appears that the camera is dead. I left it "open" for about a day after drying it as best I could with Q-tips, etc. I waited until the tiny droplets I had seen inside the eyepiece and the LED mode readout. (Dave told me that is what they are called! LOL!)

Well...all things are either caused by Yahweh, or allowed by Yahweh. I am sure that He will bring good out of this...somehow. I will choose to leave it to Him. You know, there was a time when I probably would have gotten angry and somehow blamed my son. But I did not. I honestly did not let it bother me. Yes...I miss it. Yes, I am praying for God to touch my camera and "heal" it or somehow bring me another one. But if He does neither? I will love Him anyway and just be patient.

It is disappointing. It means I can also no longer take pictures of our land and our RV and the things we are doing. It also means that I cannot take pictures to use for collages and other artwork. Bummer! Oh, well. We will see what happens.

In the meantime, we will live one day at a time, rejoicing in Him and enjoying our many blessings.

From our little RV on the hillside to you in your home, wherever and whatever it may be...we wish you Shalom...Yahweh's wholeness and peace.

Trenching to the Creek! Success!

Note the big rock in the foreground. That is what we were running into the closer we got to the creek.


There is water flowing through it!


Here the water is flowing down the bank toward the creek!

Meadow Trenching Pics!

This is actually not too bad. Usually, there is a huge "puddle" right here and it is fed from a drainage "stream" that runs through the middle of our meadow when it rains heavily. We have been working at both ends of the meadow to deal with the problem. At the "source" end, we have a trench to drain the water toward the creek and we started a kind of dirt "dam" to help block the water from going through the meadow.

This is the source end. The water drains from down the hillside and across from our neighbor. It usually creates a very large "pool" right in the middle of what you see in this picture. This nothing compared to what it usually looks like in a rain storm. The beginning of the trench toward the creek can be seen in the bottom right of this picture.



This is the beginning of the trench to the creek. Below are more pictures of the trench with the final one ending just short of the crest. There is a big stone in the trench preventing it from being dug deeper.

The "Blizzard" of March, 2008!Pics!

The view of our meadow from our "living room" window.





Birdwatching through the window.




Looking across the valley.

Looking down our creek.





Looking at the driveway from our pad.



Our creek crossing.