Weather Rained Amok

It's the end of January, nine weeks into winter, when we would normally expect snow up to the garage eaves and daily snow shoveling and plowing.

Instead. we have multiple days of fog, dense cloud, and rain...lots and lots of rain. No complaints about the rain though. The issue is that the driveway on the lot next to us has been plowed in expectation of a log package coming to be set up on it. Now the graveled drive is wet as can be. Any attempt to drive a really heavy truck with a full load of large logs is doomed to failure, with the log truck either digging in, or sliding down. And where would it slide down onto? Us.

Not to mention that the plowing moved snow in huge heaps right into the fall line above us. We have a hydrologic warning for the Cascade mountains. That includes our mountainside where Bell Creek is already running very loud. And where, might you ask is Bell Creek? Well, Bell Creek is on the lot next door where six acres of hillside was basically stripped bare for the road, all the way to within a few feet of the creek bank, or, in some cases, right up to it, which is completely illegal.

So here we are, with the snow on hillside above us melting, with rain running off it down onto us round the clock. If the idiot next door, who is a land trust lawyer, is stupid enough to try to bring a truck with tons of logs up a 60-degree slope, in the middle of a hydrological warning, nobody can save him. I just don't want to be the homestead in the way and right now, we are in the way. 

The last time the hill flooded and melted like this, we had a waterfall running over the stone wall behind the garage down onto the driveway and it washed our driveway 160 feet down onto the development road. It was an expensive fix. If there is another bill to be paid, it will land on the lawyer's doorstep because the company doing the grading and plowing work next door was the company that fixed the debacles from the builder and his crew as well as the driveway. The work next door has now radically altered the drainage and safety of the hillside above us. Hopefully none of it comes down in this weather. And hopefully Bell Creek holds its denuded banks.