December 7, 2007

Hello friends and family,

Rising River Farm has lived up to its name. We were hit pretty hard with the flooding this past week. It was the worst flood in recorded Rochester history. It beat out the last "100 year historic flood" (which was only 11 years ago, by the way) by almost a foot. Tonight is the first night we are back in our house since Tuesday. No water got in our house -thank goodness. We still had 6 or so inches to spare. (We left via canoe Tuesday morning when the water got up the 3rd step from the top.) I can't say our outbuildings faired so well. This flood came faster that any we've dealt with in the past and as a consequence we were unable to relocate all of our belongings. Our "high" shelves were not high enough in most cases. We had up to 6 feet of water in our outbuildings and greenhouses. Today was the first day we could get back in and start the clean-up. We are not entirely certain of the extent of damage and loss. Some items are water-damaged and some just plain floated away. We will not know until clean-up starts in earnest just what needs replacing and just what the insurance will cover and when.

So far we know we lost our chest freezer full of organic meat and berries (very sad), our camper trailer, power tools, 4 tons of fertilizer, seeds, hundreds of pounds of onions and shallots (they just floated away!), lumber, fire wood, pallets, tables.....Our worker housing is not looking so good. The renovated school bus was 3/4 under water, the travel trailer was at least that deep, and the yurt floated a bit and is unstable. We'll have to assess how fixable that is. Our family car has sustained some damage as well. We need to have it towed into town and see if it is salvageable. Our field trucks are toast.

We are starting the clean-up process now so if anyone is willing to help that would be great. The work that needs to be done includes sorting through the jumbled mess of muddy remains (sounds more dramatic than it is....), washing the good stuff and tossing the bad stuff. We need to wander the fence lines and retrieve items that floated away. We want to build shelves and loft space ABOVE THE FLOOD LINE!!!!!!! so that this never happens to us again. We also need a crew to dismantle the trailers so we can recycle as much of them as possible.

Our regular phone number is not working for the time being, but here is an alternate number 273-1586. Call or email if and when you can help. If you do come out dress warm and bring boots, gloves, raingear if you have it. Bring your own drinking water and food as our well got flood water in it and needs to be sanitized. Leave small kids at home since it is very muddy and who knows what is in the mud!!! There isn't really a warm dry place for small kids to hang out.

If you cannot come out to help with clean-up but want to help in other ways, we could use hardware store gift cards, food co-op gift cards, tarps, and prepared meals. We will not have potable water for a week or two and cooking and clean-up are difficult with limitted water.

So many people have already stepped up to help and we are so thankful. We are feeling very supported by our community and know that we don't have to go through this alone. Thank you!

Love Jennifer and Jim

P.S. The kids have taken it all in stride. They've been a great help. Hazel got to play a lot with neighbor kids while Cylas spent most of his time in one canoe or another. He lamented going back to school today.