Flash Flood takes out my Parent's Driveway: Manual Labor and a Brewery: Part One

There has been an unusual amount of rain this summer in upstate NY, in fact I think I even heard the words record breaking at one point, and because this is a region of lakes, we've had quite a bit of flooding throughout the area.

Now my parent's house, while being just across the street from one of these lakes, is actually several flights of stairs above it (I realize that there is a different way of saying this, such as 'so many feet' above the water, but for me it has always been measured by the three long sets of stairs, broken up by decks)

Because they are up on the hill, they never had cause to fear flooding from the lake...but as it turns out while they were looking to the front they forgot about the back, where a creek cuts through the woods and goes into a tunnel, under their driveway,

then empties out of a pipe in the embankment beside the deck stairs and flows into the lake.

Or at least that's normally what it does. Occasionally there's enough water rushing through the ravine that it picks up debris and the pipe gets blocked, so rather than going under the driveway it goes up and over the bank and down the driveway. And depending on just how much water, it has the potential to carve a path in its wake, carrying the blue stone away.

And that is exactly what happened this past week.

Shortly after this occurred we got a phone call from my very anxious parents that went something like: We are going to have to order more stone!! Then we are going to need some able bodies to spread the stone with shovels and rakes!!

And by able bodies they meant myself, my husband, my two teenagers, my brother and his wife...

Have you ever seen twenty tons of gravel in a pile before?

You have now.

Needless to say when we first saw this ginourmous louad we were a tad concerned that the six of us, and perhaps a couple others we might round up, were going to be in this driveway for days.

But all praise and give thanks to the God of Good neighbors! For one such good neighbor happened to see these hills of stone along with a line up of shovels and rakes, and took pity upon us poor souls, arriving with his tractor.

For a few happy moments we thought perhaps all of the work would be done without us lifting a finger...alas the tractor blew a hose before it could carry the rocks between the garages, so we weren't entirely off the hook.

But now with the six of us plus my brother in law and my kids' best friend, we stood a chance of completing the task by the afternoon.

The Spectators:

My dad lost the use of his legs a few years back, and while my mom is still as healthy as a horse, she's not a young woman. Also being that she's my father's primary caretaker, she really can't risk injuring herself, so the oldest and youngest among us hung out on the sidelines and cheered us on.

Um, Nope, that's not my dad's cheerleading routine, that's his attempt to make his newest grand baby smile.

A valiant effort- for which he was rewarded with a new phrase: Mean Mugging

It is a well known fact in our family that for some reason babies do not take to my dad when they're under around twelve months of age. His monkey antics and Donald Duck imitations are more likely to bring on tears than laughter.

In fact, other than his own children, there was only one exception to this baby-no-likey rule in all the years of his life;

Ethan. My son, now fourteen, adored my dad from day one.(I'm secretly convinced that even as an infant his brain was so advanced that he knew to butter up to the 'scary old man', a tactic that has served him well ;)

Putting on the finishing touches:

Annnd, it is done!

What are you so happy about, you're not the one with blisters...

...okay, I'm not the one with blisters either, (poor Howie and Zoe).

Now that the work is out of the way, it's the time of day for play...

A bit of an About:
The Lucky Hare Brewing Company, located along the Seneca lake Wine Trail, had its humble beginnings in the barn above. This year they are proud to have expanded, converting a two story house into a bar/restaurant....

Be sure to look for Part Two, coming this evening!

Generously created for me by @son-of-satire