Joscha, Christopher, Andy (a friend of ours) 3 of the volunteers who tirelessly work at the shelter and myself all turned up ready to do battle with the flood waters. At first we thought about digging channels to drain the water from the pens, but then an official told us (there is always one that turns up at such moments) that we couldn't just simply let the water drain off, if we were to do that we would have to ensure it went into a tank. Erm, we were ankle deep in water, the poor dogs some of them quite tiny in comparison to others were practically knee deep. The buildings were awash, the pens under standing water. Surely a few channels to drain the water away wouldn't hurt. But no, the water could be allowed to drain through the soil naturally, but it could not be channelled under any circumstances.
So plan B came into being. Get as much fresh gravel as we could, lay it down so the dogs at least had somewhere dry to stand and let nature do her stuff and drain the water through the soil as and when it
could.
In the above picture we estimated there was around 16 tonnes of gravel, fourteen had been delivered by truck that morning, whilst Christopher, Joscha and I had delivered at least 2 on our trailer, hence 16 tonnes, though it felt much, much more I can tell you especially when all of it having been dumped by the gate, (the closest we could get it to where it needed to be) had to be manhandled inside the compound and into the pens in order to try and alleviate the misery it was causing the dogs.
Of course being nice and dry and not to mention warm in the sun some of the dogs took full advantage of somewhere nice to sleep. It was probably the first sleep they had gotten since the heavens had opened up and the rain had come down. Boy did it bucket down, rumour had it over 400 litres fell in the first night alone and we could believe it. Even our mountain was awash so low lying places like the dog shelter was bound to be flooded out.
Barrow after barrow were filled and transported to where they needed to be. Andy our friend like Joscha was on barrow duty
As was Oliver, (a volunteer at the shelter).
With Christopher and I on shovelling duty.
Whilst inside the pens the other two volunteers raked out the gravel to form an even layer so the dogs could have somewhere dry to stand and walk.
What do you mean, typical british workmen, we'll have you know it is hard work propping those shovels up.
Tea break!!!!
Finally, the job was done!
Phew! That was exhausting...
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