Sunday January 8, 2017 Guerneville CA.
More raining cats and dogs
I could hear it raining cats and dogs again as I woke this morning so I lingered in bed.
Took the day off yesterday
Yesterday, it rained most of the day, so I mostly stayed home and enjoyed it from a cozy spot. But I did venture out for a bit. I drove down the road to visit Ray and his wife Elaine for a bit, then back home again to just sit around and take it easy mostly. I wasn’t’ really feeling too good so I took a day off from writing my blog.
Started the day with no power
Today, when I finally got up, the power went off right away, before I could get it going. It was raining hard and the wind was gusting.
I got it going just the same and eventually ventured outside during a lull. I was gong to use my waterproof point and shoot camera, but the battery was dead, so I took my good camera out instead being careful to keep the water out of it.
Gusting winds were a blowing
The first thing I noticed is some small redwood branches had broken off the big trees and were scattered around the yard
I walked over to the creek that goes by which looked like this. Only about half full so far.
Checked out the new circuit breakers the power company just installed
I walked through my brother’s place out onto Sweetwater Springs Rd. to have a look at the new circuit breakers the power company installed a couple days ago.
The breakers are down there on that pole so I headed down to have a look.
There were fuses here before and when a line got shorted by a tree or a big limb, the fuse would blow and it would take a person to come out and fix things and replace the fuses. These are newer circuit breakers that I think reset themselves or are reset through the power lines by the power company or maybe they come out to reset them too. I’ll ask when I see a power company guy out there next time.
I walked down the road just past the breakers to have another look at the creek. My house is at the upper end of the creek on the left. You can barely see it as it’s white on that side.
A storm in a forest
The creek looked like it was behaving itself, so I headed on back to my house and the rains started coming down heavy again.
Looking over my house in the wind and the rain.
Tom wants to get the generator started, just in case
I was sitting back in my house warming up and taking it easy again when my brother Tom came to the door and wanted to fire up the generator we share as it hadn’t been run in a couple of years. He said he pulled the rope and it didn’t start. He said he wanted to get it going now, instead of trying in the middle of the night, just in case. I expected the power guys to get the power back on shortly as I knew they were working on it.
No fire in the plug
So I got some warm clothes back on and went out to have a look. We pulled the plug to check if the spark plug was firing and no spark. That usually means the oil level is low which it shouldn’t be as we filled it up last time.
We checked the oil and sure enough it was low. Too low, it had to be leaking out someplace. I checked the two drain plugs and they seemed tight until I pushed hard on one and it broke loose. It wasn’t really very tight and neither was the other drain plug so I tightened them both up. Low oil in this rig has been an on going issue, so that should fix that problem.
Now we had spark and it started and then stopped. We tried starting it again for a bit and decided there was something wrong and not getting any gas. Took the bowl off the carb and not much gas.
A plugged fuel line too
I pulled the fuel line off the gas filter and got no gas which means it was being blocked back at the gas tank.
With some effort, we got the gas line off the gas tank and found the gas valve with a screen filter to be plugged up. Not at the screen, but inside the screen which shouldn’t be as the screen keeps out stuff that would plug it up. I cut the screen and found the gas hole filled up with rust from the valve metal rusting which cut off the gas.
We cleaned out the rust and put things back together and it started and ran for a bit, but them pooped out again. Ah ha, I forgot to tighten the carb bowl when I had loosened it up as I wanted some gas to flow through it to clean it out and had forgotten about it.
And then we flooded it
We got that tightened up and tried to start it, but we flooded it and so Tom went to service his chickens and I went back in the house as we’re pretty sure it will start now.
Working on the generator.
Hey, the powers back on
When I entered the house, I could hear the fridge running so they got the power back on.
That meant I could use the internet and find out what was going on with these storms and see what the river predictions were for flooding.
Not to worry, my great grand pappy was smart enough not to live in the flood plane, so my house doesn’t flood.
Anyway, I turned the computer on and checked things out.
Some might call it cluttered
Here’s what my desktop looks like. The seal was one of my buddies, but I don’t see it anymore.
If the desktop looks cluttered to you, it’s only because your mind can’t handle as much as mine can. :O)
Another walk around the yard
Later in the day, just before dark I went out during another lull to see how things were looking.
This redwood tree only lost some little stuff.
This was the biggest redwood branch I found in my yard that had broken off from the strong winds.
I went out back of my house to look at the creek again. It had come up a bit more, but still wasn’t full yet.
This is looking west over the new raspberry patch. The weeds are growing nicely.
And my front orchard is nice and lush. I like weeds when they are green. They are good for the ground too.
Checking on the river’s predicted flood forecast
The rain drove me back in the house again and that’s where I stayed for the rest of the day.
Checking the forecasts for the Russian River:
RUSSIAN RIVER AT GUERNEVILLE BRIDGE 1:00 PM STAGE: 24.4 FT FORECAST TO RISE ABOVE MONITOR STAGE OF 29.0 FT SUNDAY EVENING THEN FORECAST TO RISE TO FLOOD STAGE OF 32.0 FT LATE SUNDAY EVENING THEN FORECAST TO RISE ABOVE FLOOD STAGE OF 32.0 FT SUNDAY NEAR MIDNIGHT THEN FORECAST TO RISE TO NEAR 38.1 FT MONDAY NEAR NOON MONITOR STAGE: 29.0 FT, FLOOD STAGE: 32.0 FT
Not too much flooding tonight at 32 ft. but tomorrow the 38 ft. level will cause some flooding for sure. I always say if one lives on a river, they should expect a flood as that’s what river’s do. So be prepared.
There are more storms coming in back to back in the next week, so it might get interesting.
I continue to sit tight and enjoy the nice stormy weather. When it rains around here, it usually warms it up to around fifty degrees F. or so, so our storms are really fairly nice.
That was my day.
