Soaking Rains

This last week has brought soaking rains to the farm, a lightening strike that flattened a condo in Coos Bay, a funnel cloud over the ocean at Tillamook and tornado warnings for Astoria. To say the least the weather has been dynamic and has gone a long way to calm the fire danger here at home and at the several large wildfires burning throughout the western states including the Columbia River Gorge.

The much needed moisture put a stop to our logging because it made the roads up the hill slick and gooey. Mike tried to move the bulldozer up the skid road, the tracks would dig down to dry earth and move a few feet, then have to dig again before moving forward. At the second bend and just before the steep stretch, the dozer could go no further and he had to back down the winding road moving slow inches at a time to stay on the path.

In the landing, the area right in front of the log deck held more than a foot of rainwater. If there were anyway to get a self-loader truck in the swamped road to get to the pile, the truck would sink below the axles with the weight of the logs.

Mike brought in three truckloads of rock to fill in this puddle, smoothed the rock and compacted it with the dozer. It will still be several days before we will be able to get the log truck in for this load.