Water, Water, Everywhere

It appears the more experienced weatherman was correct - we have had rain and a lot of it. Yesterday I awoke to several inches of muddy water on on top of the ice on the big pond. The high water was threatening to breech the pond walls. Before breakfast I chopped through the ice to open up the outflow pond pipes and removed a section of retaining wall. Once the water flowing out, I tackled the drive. I wore my ski helmet while digging out over 1/2 mile of ditches to redirect the water washing out our road. High winds, ice, snow, and rain had stressed many trees beyond their breaking point. Thirty to fifty MPH winds caused branches to rain down on me. They then floated in the stream that had been our drive damming up the weed clogged ditches causing even more flooding. We still don't have heat. My living room looks like a teen's boarding house with wet clothing hanging everywhere. Yesterday when I got soaked through, I came in, took off the wet layers, warmed up by the fire, drank hot coffee and checked e-mail for news of Chinook people in Washington. Their conditions are worse with snow and freezing rain coating a foot of snow. Today we were supposed to meet in Portland but even I-5 is closed due to a major transmission line down across the freeway.
A little flooding adds a new dimension to a game of Chinook tag.The rains continue. A couple more inches are expected each day for several days. Our back yard is flooded. The garage has a stream flowing through it. But with the very real danger of the 22' deep, acre pond bursting the wall and taking out the neighbor's house diminished; and my ditches confining the road and spring run off; I can spend lots of time doing taxes and sorting through old picture slides.