101 Uses for an Old Sandbag...or Two by Jason Howell

101 Uses for an Old Sandbag...or two was written just after the Flood of the Century in 1997. Using humour, it illustrates the various ways to use sandbags that are no longer needed for holding back flood waters. At the time, the net proceeds were donated to Manitoba Flood Relief.

This is a really cute book. The illustrations are pretty simple, but they are nicely done. The only bad thing I can say about the book is that it's somewhat dated now. The material is still mostly relevant, but the specific politicians mentioned are no longer in office. I'm pretty sure, though, it's the same old politicians with the same old politics, just with different faces. *sigh*

My favourites uses for an old sandbag:

7. Host flood re-enactment dramas in your backyard, and encourage the audience to take home the "props" after each show.
13. Just lay them out in a circle in the nearest field and call the media.
28.Dike your driveway to minimize the effect of snow drifts.
49. Drink a few beer and see if you can move the bags with your mind (it make take a "few" dozen).
67. Be a prankster and dike a neighbour's home when he's out. He'll get a kick out of it.

I really like the cover.   It's funny, but also very real for us.  Personally, I was very close to waving that white flag several times during the flood and sandbagging operations. 

If you've been through a flood (like we recently have) and have a sense of humour, I'm sure you'll get a kick out of some of these suggestions.

I picked up this book at a used book sale sometime ago.   It remained packed away in a box until recently.  Since some of my neighbours are still dealing with leftover sandbags, I thought it was a good time to review the book. 

101 Uses for an Old Sandbag...or Two by Jason Howell and Pete McCullough (Illustrator), Permanent Press, ©1997. ISBN 096929720X(Soft cover), 101p.

Wordless Wednesday - Leapin' Lizards - Another creature because of the flood

More Wordless Wednesday.

Wordless Wednesday - Almost Wordless

My backyard - My 6' tall husband next to tree with water line(s) from the Manitoba Assiniboine River Flood 2011. More Wordless Wednesday.

Flood Watch - 2011 - Two Months Later

Wow! Has it really been two months since my last flood update? It seems like only yesterday. I won't go into all of the reasons for the lack of posts, but I will say that up until last week, not much had really changed. While we weren't completely surrounded by water anymore, there was still lots of it around. The backyard was pretty much the same as the photos I posted previously and the driveway was impassable. Like I said, though, things have changed in the last week or so.

Here are some highlights from past two months:

End of June - We lost our boat (the one we were using to get across the driveway). The municipality stopped paying for it and we didn't think it was worth paying for it ourselves. We had pretty much stopped using it because using hip waders was easier than paddling the distance. I only had to dip my paddle into the water about 5 times. We were still using it occasionally to haul groceries in and garbage/recycling out.  Not fun, but not a huge deal.

July 13 - My husband walked down the driveway with boots. Not hip waders. The water had dropped about 6-8 inches in just a few days. This was a big deal. Slipping on boots was a lot better than having to put on hip waders every time we wanted to get to the car. Walking with groceries, bottled water etc. wasn't fun, but we got it done.

July 17 - The water dropped even more to the point where 95% of the driveway was not underwater. There was still a small section that had about an 1" of water on it. Wearing sneakers to the car, though, was still about two weeks away.

Next four weeks or so - Nothing. No drop in water, no rise in water, just frustration at the water not moving.

August 13 or so - Water started dropping in all parts of the yard. Several inches a day! We knew it was coming and were expecting it around the first week in August. Even though it was a few days late, it was very welcome.

August 18 - We drove the SUV down the driveway and parked in the garage. We hadn't done that since late April. This is a very, very big deal. Even though the water was mostly off the driveway for a whole month already, it was way too soft to drive on.

We haven't really started cleanup yet because it's pretty mucky and slippery. Once it dries out a bit, we'll be gathering up all of the debris that floated in. I'll post more about that later this week.

This part of the yard has the most water in it. The small lake extends about 300 feet to the left, all the way to the neighbours house. It's most likely land locked now. We'll either wait until it soaks in (a long time) or we'll pump it out. Not sure yet.   Some of the trees have started to turn. It's early, but it's probably because they are water logged.  We are hoping they aren't dying.   If you click on the photo to enlarge it, you can see the water lines on the trees. 

You can see the two distinct water levels on the bottom of the large tree. The top one until mid July, the lower one until mid August.   The line on the grass is less distinct, but it too shows the two water lines. 

Lots and lots of wood to pick up.  I hope we don't find anything gross.

We are relieved that the river is finally receding, but we're a bit frustrated that it took so long for the province to make it so.   That's it for now.   

Flood Watch - 2011 - Miscellaneous items

It goes up, it goes down. The river that is.  The reason (or part of it anyway)? Manitoba and Saskatchewan have had a lot of rain in the last month or so. Let me say that again...a lot of rain. Since the ground is already saturated, it runs off into low lying areas, like the river basin. So when I said the other day that the river was slowly receding, it really was. It had gone down a whole 3-inches. We were ecstatic. A few of our neighbours were positively beaming. When we've been living with a high water level that hasn't really moved in weeks, it was encouraging to have it move in a positive direction, even though in the grand scheme of things the drop was pretty small. Since then, however, it's gone back up. With the rain that we've had over the past few days and more on the way, it's likely to come up even more. Probably just a few inches, but still. We lost most of our spring to flood woes, now it looks like our summer will also be shot.

Hip-waders. We've really gotten tired of using the boat to get across the driveway. While our driveway is long (300+ feet), the part that's underwater is less than 50 feet. By the time we load up the boat, get in the boat, paddle those few feet, we could have walked across in our hip-waders. Since we have to wear boots anyway in the boat, it's not that much trouble to put on hip-waders instead of the boots. We are not quite ready to give up the boat yet, though. We still plan on using it to get big/heavy items across the water or if the river rises more than we expect, we may be using it to transport ourselves.

Generator. The rain that we had was accompanied by wind, thunder and lightning. That means our electricity is subject to outages. When we are heavily relying on pumps to keep our basement dry, that's not good news. We had an incident last week, where the power was out for about 10 minutes. That doesn't seem like a long time, but that's about how much time it takes for the water to start backing up into the basement. Luckily, we had our new best friend on the job. Our shiny new generator. Gary had it all set up and ready to go; it took him just minutes to have it up and running.

Here's a photo of our new BFF:

Pretty, huh?

That's it for now.

Disclaimer: If you came here for information about the Manitoba Flood 2011, you've probably come to the wrong place. This post (or series of posts) will focus only on my backyard and house. If you are looking for general information regarding the flood, try the Government of Manitoba website, which can be found here or here for more area specific information regarding the Cartier, St. Francois Xavier and Headingley areas.

Saturday Snapshot - Sandbags and Flood

Yep, another flood related photo. Someday soon I should have other photos to share.

As far as the flood goes, there's good news and bad news. The bad news is that the river is still mostly surrounding us. The good news is that the water is slowly, very slowly, receding. They (the water management people) are at long last able to drop the levels on the river, so we are getting a little more of our yard back. We are still using the boat to traverse the driveway, though. The other piece of good news is that most of the sandbags in our yard are gone. Yippee!!  Because the water level is dropping, our sandbags were not needed, so they were carted off to help in the flood efforts elsewhere.

This photo shows a few of the remaining ones we kept for filling in some low spots.  By the way, this is not how you build a sandbag dike.  These ones are stacked like this just to get them out of the way. 

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Alyce of At Home With Books. To participate – post a picture that you've taken (or one taken by a friend, or a family member) then add your link on Alyce’s site using Mr. Linky.

Wordless Wednesday - Reflections

More Wordless Wednesday.

Flood Watch - 2011 - High Water Levels

I haven't posted in awhile, but we are still here....with the water surrounding our house and neighbourhood. The water level has been pretty much constant for a few weeks, only fluctuating a little here and there. It probably will only go down from here, but at a very slow rate.

We've actually been really lucky. We've had relatively few problems compared to others in the province and others in our own neighbourhood. Sure, our septic tank stopped working and had to be replaced and then our power went kaput, but all things considered we made out ok. Our sandbags are still well away from the water, which will make cleanup easier.

Having said all of that, it's still been very stressful. I'm very tired of it all and would like it if someone could just take all of this water away now.  Or better yet, take me away from here.  I'm thinking knight in shining armour on a white horse, but I'm not that picky.  Unfortunately, the water isn't going anywhere anytime soon. We just learned (from Twitter @rmcartier) that the high water level could be around for about 4 more weeks. All I can do is shake my head.

Before all of this started, we had contractors lined up to start some work on our house at the end of May/beginning of June. All of that has been postponed indefinitely. I had lots of plans for yard work/beautification to be completed this summer; again all of those plans have pretty much gone out the window. There are still a few things we can do, but lots of other stuff will have to wait until next year or cancelled all together. The major project this summer will be cleaning up sandbags and debris left behind from the receding river; all of that could take months. Our summer is too short as it is.

We do have one thing to look forward to....mosquitoes. They should be hatching in droves very shortly. With all of this standing water, I'm sure it's going to be mostly unbearable.

One more thing, anyone have a good recipe for carp? Along with the mallards, muskrat, beavers and assorted other creatures, we have a lot of them swimming around in our ditches and yards. That's another thing that'll have to be cleaned up when the time comes.

Here's a look at the backyard now that the leaves are starting to come out.  Isn't that river a lovely colour?  Yuck!  It doesn't smell that great either:

That is it for now.

Wordless Wednesday - Our transportation across flooded driveway

More Wordless Wednesday.

Flood Watch - 2011 - My Backyard - And on it goes

Yesterday, we finally had a day off from sandbagging. After many days, it was great to get some rest, but it was weird to not have to throw on my boots in the morning and slog across the water to get to command central and get the "assignment" for the day.

It was a pretty much quiet day and had it not been for our fluctuating power/telephone, it would have been more restful.

Fluctuating power? Yep, like we needed something else to worry about. The power started acting up Thursday afternoon. Only half the house was effected, so we could still plug a few things in, like the extremely important sump pumps, septic pump and water pump. We still had to do without heat or hot water (the power did come on overnight and briefly the next day) until yesterday when the electrician came back and strung a new main line (through chest high water), which will have to be trenched into the ground once the river recedes. BIG Cha-ching.

The electricians and Hydro figured that the mainline somehow got nicked. It could have been done when the geothermal was installed last year or when the flood proofing was done years ago. It sat like that until the water table came up with the rising flood waters. It wasn't caused by the flood directly, but the flood did make the problem show up.

I swear this is never going to end.

As I write this, the controlled release/breach is underway. For those out of the news area, the province has decided to deliberately cut through a section of the dike to relieve pressure downstream, where we are. The argument is that a controlled breach will flood an area much smaller than an uncontrolled one. Our area is not in the smaller inundation area, but it is in the larger one. For our sakes, I wish them luck.

A big thank you to the neighbours/volunteers who helped raise the dikes around our house and the few who helped move our freezer out of the basement! You guys are wonderful.

Flood Watch - 2011 - My Backyard - Still Here

Yesterday there was some good news and some bad news, but I'm not going to repeat any of it because it's confusing and seems to change by the minute. I can tell you that the military was sent to more at risk areas, so we can't rely on their help. I had mixed feelings about that. So far, though, we are still dry (relatively speaking)...that's the most important thing. The water level hasn't changed in days. We raised the dikes on many houses in the neighbourhood yesterday, including ours. There are more to be done today. It's long hard work and couldn't have been done without some fantastic volunteers. Thanks guys!

Lots of additional water will be coming our way shortly, hence the rise in dikes. How much is going to depend on some decisions made at the provincial government level and luck.

Once again anxiety is high, patience is thin and nerves are frayed. I hope it's not going to have lasting negative effects on our neighbourhood and the friends that we have made. For me, that would be almost as bad as a flooded basement.

I can't tell you how happy I'm going to be when I can start posting book reviews once again.  

Wish us luck.

Flood Watch - 2011 - The bad news continues

For the first time yesterday, we were told that the river will surpass 1976 levels. Just how much remains to be seen. I also heard someone say that this was our "flood of the century". That's not very comforting.

We received even more bad news last night. The whole neighbourhood (with lots of generous volunteers) busted our butts for two days getting ready for another rise in river levels. Then we heard that they are calling in the military because it’s might get even worse. We still don’t know how bad, but it’s the worst possible news to date.

While we are waiting for news, I figured I'd post the pictures of the sandbagged house. If things are going to get a whole lot worse, these small dikes will rise.

.I didn't sleep at all well last night, so this morning I'm pretty much at the end of my rope. I don't know how much more of this I can take.

One more thing: The area is pretty much a disaster zone. If you don't live in the area or don't need to be here, please don't come down just to take a look. You'll see all you need to see on the news or in the newspapers. Of course, after all of this is over, we'll welcome you with open arms.

If you'd like to volunteer to sandbag or help out, please listen to the news for details.

Disclaimer: If you came here for information about the Manitoba Flood 2011, you've probably come to the wrong place. This post (or series of posts) will focus only on my backyard and house. If you are looking for general information regarding the flood, try the Government of Manitoba website, which can be found here or here for more area specific information regarding the Cartier, St. Francois Xavier and Headingley areas.

Flood Watch - 2011 - My Backyard - This is unreal

May 6th - Morning - Did a little sandbagging at two houses across the highway. Things had calmed down quite a bit and we were told that the river was stabilizing. It did look that way. We were told that a second peak wasn't expected because of the way they were managing the river. We were planning a nice relaxing day.

May 6th - Afternoon - Got an email saying that river levels were going to rise dramatically the following week and we had 7 days to prepare. Panic!!!! From what I understand, this isn't another peak, but something else. It's not clear to me and right now it doesn't really matter.  

May 6th - Late afternoon and evening - Lots of behind the scenes (for us) action. Spent that time moving sandbags into position to get ready for bagging. Many houses in the neighbourhood were going to need it.

May 7th - All Day - Volunteers, equipment and food descended on the neighbourhood. Sand dikes were erected including one around our house. From our standpoint, things went really well. Rain is forecasted for a number of days. That is not good news.  The volunteers, neighbours, food and support staff were wonderful.  Thanks so much.

May 8th - All Day - See May 7th.

High water levels, flooded land, and wearing hip waders or boots all the time are starting to feel like normal.  Others entering the area for the first time say it looks like a war zone.   Sad times. 

More later including photos. 

Flood Watch - 2011 - Would you like one crest with that or two?

It looks like the river has crested or is very near the crest. There's still a lot of water out west that has to come our way yet, so it's definitely not over. We might see another crest in a couple of weeks. Depends on who you talk to, this water could be around for 3-6 weeks. Yikes!

Our house is completely surrounded by water now. We still are not sandbagged and hope that it stays that way. The water is about 30 feet from the house in the backyard. Two days ago we could still walk to both neighbours' properties without boots. Yesterday, it was down to one. Today we are surrounded. It's not an ideal situation, but we are making due. A nice couple a few doors down has offered us their spare canoe. (They are already paddling down their driveway). We haven't taken them up on it yet, but we are thinking we will.

The TV stations were out late yesterday and all day today. We didn't personally talk to them, but a few of our neighbours did. I love seeing people I know on TV. It's too bad it has to be because of this stupid river. On CBC, a tiny clip of our house and car were on the news (CBC was talking to our neighbours). On CTV, both of us were shown (with others) sand bagging a failing dike. On Global, our house once again was shown (the news people were in the neighbour's yard on the other side). We PVRed all of them ;)

Here's a photo of me in my new hip-waders. I look dumpy, grumpy, old, worn out and tired, but that's pretty much what I look like. I'm standing on the driveway (front yard) half way to the road. The river should be in my backyard about 600 metres behind the house. Now that we can't get out of the yard without boots, I'm sure I'm going to be wearing them a lot more.

That's it for now. Life is an adventure.

Disclaimer: If you came here for information about the Manitoba Flood 2011, you've probably come to the wrong place. This post (or series of posts) will focus only on my backyard and house. If you are looking for general information regarding the flood, try the Government of Manitoba website, which can be found here or here for more area specific information regarding the Cartier, St. Francois Xavier and Headingley areas.

Flood Watch - 2011 - My Backyard - The Situation Worsens

I haven't been posting much (especially book reviews) or keeping up with my Google Reader because the flood situation has gotten much worse. Anxiety is high, patience is thin and nerves are getting frayed.

The house is still high and dry (for now), but I can't say the same for our yard. We are not completely surrounded by water yet (unlike some of our neighbours), but we might be by the time this thing is over.   Our sump pump is going like crazy and we have two other pumps standing by.   We still don't have plans to sandbag (that could change any minute), but we have been out helping with sandbagging other houses.

Two nights ago our front yard filled with water and covered part of our driveway. It's getting deeper by the minute and is now coming in from different directions. Our side yards have been filling up for a few days and will more than likely flood our sheds. There's even more water on the way.

I have tons of photos to share, but right now it's taking up too much of my time to post them. Maybe when things calm down a bit.   The crest should happen in a few days, but the water is likely to stay around for weeks.   Not good news. 

I have a couple of book reviews that I promised I'd have up for the 4th. I will be posting these on time.

Once this flood situation is more stable I hope to get back to more book reviews.

Thanks for your patience.

Flood Watch - 2011 - My Backyard - The Continuing Saga

Disclaimer: If you came here for information about the Manitoba Flood 2011, you've probably come to the wrong place. This post (or series of posts) will focus only on my backyard and house. If you are looking for general information regarding the flood, try the Government of Manitoba website, which can be found here or here for more area specific information regarding the Cartier, St. Francois Xavier and Headingley areas.


The flood waters from the ice jam and surges have receded. Mostly. We are still left with huge puddles. Here are some recent photos:

...I know it's hard to tell just how much the river has receded. It's marked, but it's too hard to see here. Next time, I'll get my husband to stand out there. The water has actually dropped a bit more since I took these photos.

The flood waters have brought with them some new critters into the back yard. There's a muskrat, who's as cute as can be, and a pair of mallards. Sorry, no photos. My telephoto lens isn't that good. While it's nice to see wildlife up close, the muskrat can carry diseases and the mallards should really be living near a real pond, not here. If she lays her eggs nearby, I'm going to worry about them for the entire summer.

As if the rising waters weren't enough, the septic pump broke twice in one day! First the float (it measures the water level and tells the pump to turn on), then the pump. I don't know if it was just time for the pump to go or if it was overwhelmed by the additional ground water, which was finding its way into the tank. Whatever the reason, it stopping pumping and was replaced. Cha-ching.

As far as more flooding and the crest, the forecasted levels have been updated (according to the Manitoba Water Stewardship website) and it doesn't look good. I'm not going to post any numbers here because the last time I did that things had changed by the time I wrote the piece and posted it. I'll just say that the forecasted peak levels have risen (compared to the forecasts from a few weeks ago) and it's enough to make us nervous. Very nervous. We still have no plans to sandbag, but that may change depending on the next week or so.

Since we haven't been through a crest yet, we are not sure what to expect. We were told that the water will start rising sometime this weekend. We've also heard (not sure where) that we should be prepared to live with high water levels for some time....perhaps weeks.

It's really hard to keep track of what going on in the rest of the province (the whole prairies really) when we are worried about our own house and property. However, we do know that others have it much worse than we do. Deaths, evacuations, closed roads, flooded houses, lost farmland and the list goes on. It's not good is an understatement. We are lucky in the grand scheme of things.

...and the rollercoaster continues.

Flood Watch - 2011 - When the River Comes to Visit

I had a longer post to put up here, I'm too tired to post it. I'll just let the pictures tell the most of the story.

Sunday morning the backyard looked pretty much like it did on April 12. By Sunday afternoon, we saw the water pouring into the yard. Apparently, this rise was as a result of some ice jams and subsequent surges from upstream.

Monday morning, we woke up to this. [The first five photos are a pan of the backyard. The last one shows how close the river is to the house. Remember it's supposed to be over 1/2 kilometre away.]

We have no idea if this is the worst of it or if more bad news is around the corner. There are many conflicting reports coming from all directions. For the time being, we are not sandbagging our property. I'll post more in a couple of days.

Disclaimer: If you came here for information about the Manitoba Flood 2011, you've probably come to the wrong place. This post (or series of posts) will focus only on my backyard and house. If you are looking for general information regarding the flood, try the Government of Manitoba website, which can be found here or here for more area specific information regarding the Cartier, St. Francois Xavier and Headingley areas.

Flood Watch - 2011 - My Backyard - Still Waiting

Disclaimer: If you came here for information about the Manitoba Flood 2011, you've probably come to the wrong place. This post (or series of posts) will focus only on my backyard and house. Please don't depend on it for flood information. If you are looking for general information regarding the flood, try the Government of Manitoba website, which can be found here or here for more area specific information regarding the Cartier, St. Francois Xavier and Headingley areas.

We've had a few days of warm weather, so most of the snow is gone.

Not too much is new. Same emotional rollercoaster. Hearing reports from other parts of the province where the situation is dire and tragic has added to the stress.

We've been reading flood sheets and flood reports for our area (from the Manitoba Water Stewardship website) and even though the data seems encouraging, the province is still recommending that we prepare for 1976 river levels. Because we are at that level already, we will not be sandbagging. That may change if the situation worsens. We did move some stuff out of the basement just in case. We are waiting to see what happens next before doing more.

I'm really getting tired of waiting, watching, wondering and more waiting. I want summer already! The updated predicted crest is: April 26 - May 2. Looks like more waiting is in order.

Here are a few pictures of the back yard now that most of the snow is gone:

In 2009 (last time we had high water levels), we had several huge puddles around the yard that eventually joined up with the rising river. So far this year we had a few, but most of them have disappeared now. It might be giving us a false sense of security with regards to flooding. I'm still hoping we don't see any river water in the back yard.

Anyway, that's it for now.

Flood Watch - 2011 - My Backyard - Quick Update

Last week we had a brief, but major, panic attack after we saw that our neighbour had sand bags stacked in his driveway. The bad thing was that this neighbour is further away from the river than we are. We figured if he needed sandbags, we were in trouble because it looked like the river would have to go through us to get to him. After some quick phoning around, we discovered that he is indeed a little lower than us and has the sandbags just in case. I hope he doesn't have to use them.

The forecasted peak levels on today's flood sheet/report are well below the record levels set in 1976. In fact, they are about 8 feet lower. That's good news for us. Having said that, there is some precipitation on the way that might negatively affect the predication. Also, there still hasn't been a lot of runoff (according to the report) and tons of ice remains on the river. That means ice jams, which could cause the water to rise rapidly, are still a big concern.

Predicted crest is still weeks away: April 28 - May 7. Waiting is not fun.

I'll post some photos of the yard early next week. With some warmer weather predicted for the weekend, we should have a lot less snow.

Disclaimer: If you came here for information about the Manitoba Flood 2011, you've probably come to the wrong place. This post (or series of posts) will focus only on my backyard and house. If you are looking for general information regarding the flood, try the Government of Manitoba website, which can be found here or here for more area specific information regarding the Cartier, St. Francois Xavier and Headingley areas.

Flood Watch 2011 - My Backyard - Slightly Better News

The latest (and last) forecast for the 2011 Flood was released on March 25. The situation is still grim overall, but for us the situation has improved slightly. The municipality is currently recommending that temporary dikes be built to the 1976 (record year) level without the +2' for free board. Since our house and the land around it is 1976 + 1' we don't need to sandbag. That's a huge relief. I don't want anything cutting into my reading/blogging/crafting/gambling time. Providing the forecast is right (they are usually pretty good at predicting these things) and we don't get an ice jam, we should be relatively ok-ish.

Some of our neighbours will not be as lucky. There are a few thousand sandbags at the end of our street. Some of these have already been delivered to the individual yards. I'm not sure how many houses are sandbagging, but it's at least a few. It's pretty disconcerting to see them all. My anxiety level is definitely up.

There's still a good chance that some of our property is going to be underwater. Just how much remains to be seen. There's still a 1 in 10 chance that it'll get closer than it did in 2009. At that time, the river was within 50 feet of the house. We still had about 6-8 feet of elevation because the land around our house was raised for flood proofing.

We finally got to see an aerial photo of our area from 1976. There's really not that much to see. Our street didn't exist then and there were just a few houses around. It's hard to tell where the water was because the area was heavily forested. Judging by the survey levels and other information we've received, we are now guessing that at least the bottom of the trees were submerged. I also found some photos online of our area (from ground level) in 1976. They were not pretty. Roads were underwater and in some areas there was just water as far as the eye could see.

As for current conditions, I was going to post more pictures of the yard, but not much has changed. Some of the snow has melted in the nearby city; even the farmers' fields are looking more spring-like. However, our property with its many trees still looks like winter even though we've had some melting. There are areas where we can see the ground, especially around the house where my husband removed the snow (in case we had to sandbag - can't sandbag on snow or ice), but the other 2.75 acres is still pretty much covered.

The weather is definitely warming up now so we should see more of the ground soon enough. I'll post some photos of the yard (or water as the case maybe) when there's been a change.

A big Thank You to those who outright volunteered or said yes when asked to help us with sandbagging, moving furniture and everything else. Please stand down...for now. ;)

Disclaimer: If you came here for information about the Manitoba Flood 2011, you've probably come to the wrong place. This post (or series of posts) will focus only on my backyard and house. If you are looking for general information regarding the flood, try the Government of Manitoba website, which can be found here or here for more area specific information regarding the Cartier, St. Francois Xavier and Headingley areas. You can also get more information by calling your local municipality office.