Start of Autumn

Autumn is just about here, and it's not fooling around. We could here it roaring in the distance this last Saturday, when a sudden storm blew in with gusts in the 50 mph range. It's been so bone dry, with only a couple of real rains all summer, that the Puget Sound area looks more like southeast Oregon than its usual perpetually verdant self. The trees, in an act of self preservation, went into drought crisis mode and shunted what little moisture they had to their trunks. This left the branches dry...and brittle. You can guess what happened when that gale blew in.

We were across the bay in Port Gamble on Saturday, where History Pundit Spouse was giving his Historical Firearms talk at their first annual Steampunk Festival. It's a perfect place for something like that, it being a mid-19th century logging mill town frozen in time, one of the last real mill (company owned) towns in the country. Our "lecture hall" was the parlor of the Walker-Ames mansion, a magnificent pile in need of restoration but still in good enough shape for the occasional ghost walk or Steampunk convention. As I ran the Power Point for Gordon, I could look over his shoulder and see huge swells rolling northward up the bay, driven by the constant south wind. The power only flickered once (yay!) during the talk, in the wake of a massive gust that shook the house, and caused the projector to re-boot, but we made it.

A spot of tea sounded delightful, so we packed up our gear and repaired across the street to meet friends at the Tea Shop...and the whole town went down. The thoughtful chef bagged up some scones, jam, cream and lemon curd for us to take home. Stopping to chat with the fabricator of a spectacular Steampunk armored car, we snapped some photos and then noticed the power was back...so it was back to the tea shop for us! Many goodies and a veritable cask of Monkey Snow Plum tea later, we finally turned home.

The many, many downed trees and large branches we passed did not bode well, and sure enough our power was out when we pulled in to ye farm. Our one mechanical clock indicated it had gone out at almost precisely noon, which was about when we'd felt that giant gust across the bay in Port Gamble. We heat with wood, a stove we can cook on if necessary and the weather's cold enough to warrant stoking it, we have plenty of oil lamps and candles, but what we do not have is a water tower or hand pump for the well. When the power's out, we have no water. Luckily it was raining and the rain buckets and barrels were full, but it's still a pain when you're trying to get water to horses, chickens, and, most importantly, the toilet.

Apparently around 500,000 people were without power in the area. Yeah, Fall is pretty much here. It took three days and a couple of phone calls to get our power restored. Having no electricity delayed our already bumped episode of the History Files podcast. It also meant I wasn't able to start the detox/cleanse/healing diet I'd been longing to start the minute PAX was done, but it wasn't exactly a crisis.

The weather, despite the occasional thunderstorm, is actually pretty mild right now. I love this time of year and always have. I love going barefoot in warm weather, but I also love pulling on fluffy socks and wearing lots of loose layers. Fall means notebooks, pencils, art supplies, new clothes... ok, those are childhood happy memories, but Fall still means the smell of maple leaves, wood smoke, seeing your breath in the morning air, birthdays (for me and my sister), and the thrill of coming up with a costume for Halloween. The cats are growing their winter coats and are already starting to look fuzzy instead of svelte and shiny. The chickens are slowing down their laying, and the grass is greening back up after looking like the Sahara for months. I have a pile of apples to process in the kitchen, blackberries in the freezer to make something with, and the squash will be ready to start eating soon. I love this time of year.

Last Days of Summer

It's the middle of August here in the Pacific Northwest, the East side of Puget Sound, to be exact. This afternoon around 5:30 I stepped outside to give the chickens some scraps, and instead of a blast of heat at the end of a blindingly sunny Summer day, I was met with a soft, barely cool breeze. What a difference from the years I spent in Northern California, where I pretty much just hid for six months of the year until the heat wave passed. Right now in Stockton and L.A. and Sacramento people are cranking their air conditioners day and night, while up here we manage to keep things under control with an "open windows at night, closed and shuttered during the day" policy. Usually this means just closing up whichever side of the house is in sun at the moment, and leaving the other sides open to the breeze, unless it gets over 80 F at which point I batten the hatches and turn on a couple of ceiling fans.

As a native-born Washingtonian, this is a time of year I loathed in California. After months of unbearable heat which never seemed to abate, I was ready to jump in front of a bus by August, knowing that the worst was far from over and probably wouldn't be until darned near Halloween. As a little kid growing up near Seattle, my memories of Halloween involved much whining about having to wear a coat over my costume to go trick-or-treating. Now I'm just grateful that I'm back where Autumn actually means "cooler weather", and "back to school" clothes involved new sweaters, wool skirts, courderoy pants, and a new coat of some kind. Ordering socks and sweaters from the Sears catalog was an end-of-Summer ritual that heralded both the advents of the school and Holiday seasons, as well as in our household both my and my sister's October birthdays.

The landscape, especially this year with the crazy dry weather, is scorched and brown, but the daytime high temperatures are manageable for even this heat weenie. The breeze even at midday is refreshing. The sun is setting at a more reasonable hour. The leaves on the maple trees are browning early because of our unseasonably hot and dry Summer, which adds to a feeling that Fall is just around the corner. The apple tree is full, and it's just about time to get picking before the crows get into their annual "take just one big bite out of each apple" routine. Time to fill the kitchen with the smell of apples and cinnamon. Extra perk of not being a little kid anymore: I don't have to wear a coat over my Halloween costume if I don't want to.

Weather Underground

As I type this it is dumping down rain outside. Not unusual for the Pacific Northwest, of course, but even for here this is a crazy amount all at once. This is the land of drizzle, not downpour. There will be flooding on the Snohmish, Snoqualmie, and Skagit rivers I'm sure.

To keep in the weather theme, my very first recommendation or "cool thing" on my newly revitalized blog is...the Weather Underground! This is my go-to place for weather info. What makes it, I think, superior to all other internet weather services is its location specificity. They get their data from numerous public and private weather stations, not just one "official" point in any given region. I don't know what the weather is like where you live, but around here it can be dark and stormy here, and sunny and clear five miles away, then windy five more miles on, then foggy, etc.

The home page looks like Too Much Information at first, but with a few clicks you can customize it for your personal use. I mostly just want the forecast for the next day or two. Nobody, not even NOAA, can predict beyond a general trend, what the weather will be like more than 24 or so hours ahead, and all weather sites have about the same accuracy in that regard. What Weather Underground has that's special is the "Wundermap", which gives you real-time doppler radar, color-coded for precipitation density and type (rain, snow, etc.) You can customize this to be as detailed as you like as far as the information shown, the weather stations, and the type of map underlay. Play with it, it's amazing. In the example above, I have it showing the doppler radar (which is saturated at the moment), the severe weather alert areas (the solid green mappage), and the storm tracks. The little circles are the individual weather stations. The number in them is the temperature (in Farenheit), and if they have a "tail" that's the wind direction and speed (see legend).

They have the usual widgets for placing weather info on your web sites. They also have a mobile version for your Blackberry, iPhone or other smartyphone device. Check it out at www.wunderground.com

More Eagle, AK news

It's time to think about rebuilding. I'm hoping somebody sets up a donation station in Fairbanks for building supplies. As soon as the roads are open, trucks can roll in. Doesn't make much sense to fly in tons of lumber and hardware in light planes...

Eagle Update

This just in: The response from Fairbanks residents for donations to flood victims in the village of Eagle was so overwhelming that Everts Air Alaska asked that people hold off with more donations until further notice. As of Wednesday afternoon, Everts had received more than 7,000 pounds of donations.

“It’s been unbelievable,” Everts director of operations Ken Leary said. “People have come over and donated all kinds of stuff — bottled water, food, clothes, boots, toiletries, baby formula.”

Everts was not able to fly to Eagle Wednesday to deliver the items because of weather but is hoping to make it into the village today, Leary said.

“Once we can get this stuff moved over there we can find out what else they need and let people know,” Leary said.

The water is finally receding, but mountains of ice have been left behind.

So...hang on to your donations for the moment. It's not over yet. The flood is heading down-river toward Circle and points West, and they may still need supplies in Eagle.

Eagle Alaska Needs Help!

A few years ago I worked as a cook for an archaeological field school on the 40Mile River in far Eastern Alaska. That's literally "near the middle of nowhere" for those unfamiliar with Alaskan geography. We staged out of Eagle, a teensy town on the Yukon River, about 100 miles downstream of Dawson (Yukon Territory, Canada). It's a tight little community of between 100-125 people (depending on who's fed up and leaving/who's trying the homesteading experience). It's also the site of historic Ft. Egbert.

I was there in July and August, and even then the river was a huge, silent grey behemoth, making at least six knots and cold as death. It's a powerful thing. Every Winter this force of nature freezes solid. It's Alaska (and the Yukon), remember? This makes a great "highway" for dog sleds and "snow machines" to get easily to the communities along the river. In the Spring, they wait for "breakup", when the ice (we're talking super thick ice, here, 5' and more) start to pop and crack with sounds like distant and not so distant artillery. At some point the pressure of the water wins over the slowly melting ice, and the grinding, crunching train of ice moves down the river. This process takes days. Please look at a map of the Yukon in case you still have no idea how big it is.

This year, nature, as is her wont, mixed things up a bit. Last week Alaska experienced a bit of a heat wave, and tributary streams thawed, inundating rivers with early runoff. The big, deep-ice Yukon did not, of course, melt instantly. Breakup takes time, and the impatient streams feeding the giant river made things...unstable. On the morning of Monday, May 4th, a huge jumble of monster "icebergs" passed Dawson. When it reached the large bend in the river where Eagle sits, it jammed. I won't go into detail. You can read about it at the Fairbanks news site.

No fatalities, but this community is devastated. They have no power, limited water, and the medical center was one of the buildings that was "Titanic-ed". The old tribal village, just up river, is totally wiped out. The new village is above the flood, but has no power and water at this time. Helicopters are bringing in emergency supplies.

If you're interested in helping, there are several ways you can. If you'd like to make a monetary donation, there's always the Red Cross. There's a phone number on that page that you can call if you want your donation to go to a specific concern.

You can also send "stuff" directly to Eagle. Although the road is closed, and the airport (a little gravel strip) is cut off from town at the moment (I believe), this should change soon, and there are at least nine families that have lost everything. Fleece or wool jackets/shirts, wool trousers, foul-weather gear, knit hats, gloves, socks, and rubber boots are fashion mainstays at this time of year. Don't forget underwear, toiletries (the store was wiped out), pain-killers, emollient hand lotions (ever worked in cold, wet conditions?), soap, towels, etc.. I think the most sensible thing to do is send anything to the Eagle Bible Chapel, Amundson St, Eagle, AK 99738. I attended there during my short stay, and they will know who needs what. Just write "flood relief" on the box somewhere.

This is a small, fiercely independant community. They resent government interference and would much rather help each other or be contacted by "real people" than some agency. Put in a friendly letter, pictures of you and your kids and the dog! A bar of chocolate! It will mean a LOT to them. Winter is long, hard, and dreary up there. Most newcomers don't make it past their first one. Spring was looming, the sun was about to shine...and then this happened. Here's your chance to be a hero!

Thanks!

Blog Sloth

As has been pointed out by a reader of one of my other blogs, I haven't been posting a lot lately. At this time of the year, the yard/garden starts to explode and I have to spend every good day outside working on it, or I just throw up my hands by the end of May. We're entering the month where we have to mow the grass twice a week. No lie. Luckily it settles down after a bit. At times like this, I'm glad I discovered the Twitter thing. I can randomly post thoughts, links, and bad phone pics at the drop of a hat, from anywhere, something that suits my "lifestyle" pretty well right now.

Why I'm glad to be back in WA

Week Old Weather Report

It snowed exactly a week ago. Here is photographic evidence. I'm slow getting these up because I've been switching computers and everything is topsy-turvy.

We don't often get actual fluffy snow, usually just wet glop, due to our residing at about altitude 200' and adjacent to a large body of salt water, so this was noteworthy.

For the concerned amongst you, I knocked the snow off of that twisted willow (and the dogwood and other fragile shrubs/trees) right after I snapped these pics. It was just too painful looking. Even so, I love a morning with fresh snow: silent, clear, cold, and clean except for the smelly horses staring holes in my back because I'm taking pictures and not feeding them RIGHT NOW BECAUSE WE'RE DYING! After they were saved from starvation and turned out, they immediately rolled in the snow and looked like quadrupedal yeti.




Actual photo of Gordon working in the yard! Well, on the deck. First time we've had to shovel snow since we moved here almost three years ago. The snow lasted for almost five days, which is very surreal for the above reasons.

Sunny...and still windy

Woke up to blinding sunshine this morning: OW! The wind, which was supposed to slack off by 1900 last night, is still going strong. My parents' basement flooded yesterday when they were out, of course, so they came home to a swamp. Love that wall-to-wall carpet. My brother and I pitched in to move furniture and shop-vac up the water. It's going to be fine, but it was just too much work for a couple in their 70s.

Here's Granny Cat toasting herself in the sunshine today. Usually she toasts outside on the roof of the garden shed, but today the wind would probably roll her off. I don't know why my chickens haven't blown away like fluffy tumbleweeds, but they haven't. Maybe they grasp the turf with their claws like Spider Man climbing up a wall. Hm. Anyway...

The power never went out, which is probably due to the fact that the power was constantly going out last year at this time and all of those branches and bad poles came down already and/or were fixed. The local infrastructure has been beefed up with taller, stronger poles and a new substation down the road, so we're in much better shape.

Aren't adults boring? "Weather" blah blah blah "electricity" blah blah blah. Gah, I sound like my Civil Engineer dad!

Well, I'll have you know that I'm only masquerading as an adult! I'm really irresponsible and spend way too much time fooling around on my computer, so there.

Rainy

Yes, it's Washington, but rain here is usually pretty wimpy. It's a total deluge at this point. Every watercourse is flooding or about to. Culverts are over capacity. There are landslides, washouts, and standing water in general all over the PNW in general and our county in specific. My parents' basement has flooded and I spent the evening moving everything out of a bedroom so the carpet could be pulled up before it molds, while my brother vacuumed up vat after vat of water with his super shop vac.

The power could go out at any moment because of the high winds.

Can I have the snow back?

Snowy

It's snowing right now. Big, white, wet, floofy flakes. I predict broken branches about the area in the next few hours. It's just not cold enough for good dry snow that looks nice but doesn't do damage. I let the horses in because they were turning in to yetis. The chickens didn't want to walk in the snow from the under the porch to the henhouse, so I carried them one by one. Birds.

Catflap

Got the cat door/insert thingy more or less finished just in time for the rains to start in earnest. If we get a nice warmish day next week maybe I'll put some paint on it so it doesn't look quite so okie.

I just glued the shims/spacers in because I was too lazy to find screws, but that can be retrofitted later.

At least it's sealed and not just rattling around in the plywood anymore. Now, if the cats can just deal with having to open their own door (the horror!)...

When I said The Rains had started, I wasn't kidding. Yesterday's gale force winds have sucked major moisture in off the ocean, and we're about to get a good soaking. For those of you who think it rains non-stop in western Washington, I have news for you: it doesn't. Yes, we have a lot of gray days, but actual garden-watering rain? Nah. To quote a preacher from Uganda who was guest speaker at our church late this last Spring on a misty Sunday morning, "Never have I seen such small rain!" You want "big" rain? Visit his home, or anywhere in the tropics, or the Carolina's. There's a reason it's humid back east in the Summer. Unless you're out on the East side of the Olympic Mountains in the official rain forest (one of two temperate rainforests in the world), it's just not that rainy here. But I digress...

As I puttered away on the cat door project it grew darker and darker. Then just as I was installing it, there was a flash of lightening and a huge clap of thunder...which seemed to roll on for much longer than was warranted by such a quickie lightning strike. Concerned about the horses, I hurried over to where I could see into the pasture. Stampede? Agitation? Anything? No, our animals are poster children for the "Too Dumb to Come in Out of the Rain" society. That's Woody, too mellow to notice the life-threatening fire from the sky, which is fine by me.

Today's Happy Homemaker Hint: Get your husband to split some cedar logs salvaged from your dad's summer tree trimming project, then stack the logs by the wood stove. Instant cedar room freshener!

Storm a comin'

Looks like we're going to get the first big blow of the season sometime late tonight and into tomorrow. The jet stream is diverting our way, pushing down from the NW and into the center of the western states...which means Texas and points east are in for a rough ride. I need to get off my hinder and finish the cat door and chicken doors (in the henhouse, of course).

Update, 21:38: Got a temp hatch on the ventilation hole in the henhouse (read: put a hinge on the polygonal chunk that Bev cut out several months ago and slapped it back up with some roofing material as an additional rain-shedding device.) The cat door is crudely in place. The cats did NOT help... It just needs weatherstripping around the edges, and shimming around the actual cat flap (it's built to sit in an actual exterior door, not a piece of 1/4" plywood). Tomorrow is another day...

Here comes cavalry season!

Spring is lurking in the shadows, and we know what that portends: tourney season! Little Honor had his first trail ride today (that's him on the left, the giant grey baby). Nobody died: yay! At 17.2(?) hands, he's the biggest baby I know. Now if his mommy can just find him a happy home...

It was so nice and balmy this morning I didn't even have to wear gloves in the woods! Meanwhile, I talked to some folks in Second Life (who live much farther East) who had to shovel snow this morning. I love the Pac. Northwest, thank you very much.

As you can see from the photo left, Woody's mane is growing in nicely from his "high & tight" cut last year. The sweet itch was bugging him so bad during the Summer that he'd rubbed his mane all raw in a couple of spots. Right before Faire Bev shaved it all off because it looked so ratty. This year we'll get him on an antihistamine so he doesn't suffer all season, poor baby. No itchy!!!

Gordon on Jaran, Woody's head in lower right corner.

trail ride 03-07
Bev describes Honor's canter...

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Frightful Weather

Yes, it's snowing again. Granted it's wet, fitful snow and will likely melt by afternoon, but still...

My rhubarb is coming up, so I put some more manure around it for good measure. I have three plants, but is that really enough? I saw some bare-roots for sale at Valley Nursery for cheap the other day. As soon as I have a few dollars to rub together I'm going to get one or two of them. I can't help but remember when we lived in wretched central valley, California, and I tried to grow rhubarb. It was so hot in the Summer they just fried in the concrete-like ground, and then in Winter they rotted in the concrete turned to slime. A potted rubarb cost me over $14 at a nursery in Nevada (the nurseries in California just glazed over when I asked, as though I had requested a Venusian Liquid Metal slime mold or something).

Rubarb: it's not just for breakfast.

Chilly

Got a little dusting of snow last night. Just enough to re-apply what melted yesterday when the outside temp rose to a sweltering 42 F or so. My suet bird feeder is empty, and now I can't find the mould to make another suet cake! Fooey. I guess I should clean my kitchen, then it will magically appear.

Bev brought over her big baby shire Honor yesterday to get him under saddle a bit. He's just four years and I think yesterday was maybe his third time with a rider. Nobody died. This was a distinct possibility considering that the ground is frozen right now, and coming off a 17+ hand horse could be ugly.

There is a lot of ice down by the drainage ditch/creek right now. In fact, there are huge sheets of thick ice where there has been seepage from all the rain we had. When Gordon went to retrieve Jaran and Woody from the back pasture, they were slipping all over the place: a giant wreck did NOT occur, miraculously.

Also of note: Natalie layed her first egg this weekend! It was actually a pretty decent one for a first egg, and (drum roll please)...she's a greenie! Yay! I'm on the way back to tutti frutti egg cartons! She layed her second this morning. I'm just positive that Americauna/Auracanas can lay blue eggs, too. I must find a blue girl somewhere...

At any rate, after a few months of maybe one or two eggs a week (from Ophelia, my die-hard Cochin fluff ball), we're back to business. Keridwen is almost grown back from her molt and should start laying again soon, especially since the days are getting longer. Lobelia should start pitching in, too (she's so lazy). Emma, little Seabright bird, will lay again when she darn well feels like it, because she marches to a different drummer.

Let's see. How much more prosaic can I be? I know...a cat picture!

Gimli loves his snuggly bed.

Not so cold

There appears to be imminent danger of my turning into a boring adult. What's with the weather posts? Well, it's easy to talk about, I guess, when you're busy.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. This morning we awoke to 37F and a dusting of snow. OK, a slushing of slush, because at that temp you don't exactly get powder. Looking at the forecast for the next few days, I think it's going to degenerate to a whole lotta rain. Yes, this is the PNW, but enough already! This is one of the wettest winters ever. I think we've met our averages for the next few years already. I'm so glad we have a huge pasture so the horses don't have to stand in mud.