PNW: December 2014

This time last year, we had the coldest winter in 30 years. Our pipes broke down by the well head. A friend tried to come over to help, but skidded into a ditch almost immediately upon leaving his driveway and called to say he was going to stay home instead. I called some pros to come take a look and they told me there were 200 people in line ahead of me. We were completely snowed in and for a week, the only water we got was by melting and boiling and filtering snow. Today the temps were in the high 40's. Boy, the weather in the PNW can be variable.

Unfortunately, good weather means work. We chainsawed down many trees. A few of them caught in other trees on the way down. I swung them them back and forth like pendulums until they came loose. A little scary sometimes! It took four cartloads on the back of the golf cart to haul them all away, and plenty more are left. Not just more cut logs, but more trees that need to be cut. Yeesh. I was ready for my aspirin when we were done.

Sometimes I could really use some snow!

I remember your frozen pipe episode from last winter. Hope everything is in better shape for a hard freeze this year. How big is your property that you have lots of trees to fell?

Rain, Rain, go away, come back some other day!

sanderson wrote:I remember your frozen pipe episode from last winter. Hope everything is in better shape for a hard freeze this year. How big is your property that you have lots of trees to fell?

We're on about four acres tucked up against BLM land. It's very densely wooded; to build the houses in this development, some of the hills had to have platforms blasted and cut into them with bulldozers. The HOA rules are that you're not supposed to cut down any trees at all, but we do sometimes cut the diseased ones. No point having them around, because they'll just infect others.

New ones spring up pretty fast, though. It amounts to there always being something growing, something dying, and something dead. And plenty of firewood any time we need some. We're starting to burn some now that is three years old; its taken us that long to get to it.

On another note, I had a nice greeting from one of our dogs this morning. Woke me up better than coffee. She jumped up and licked me in the face ... right after eating some turkey bleep and rolling her chest in it. Boy was she happy to see me; for once, I didn't feel the same.

Turkey breath! Just got to love our pets!

sanderson wrote:Turkey breath!  Just got to love our pets!  

We have a flock of wild turkeys in the area, at least ten passed by my house this morning while Jazz my dog barked at them.  They looked well fed, due to neighbours feeding them.  Two large male turkeys among them, the larger one obviously the harem leader. I bet number two is just biding his time.
When walking Jazz he has his nose to the ground and he wanders all over the place. I often wonder, when dogs follow a scent do they know which direction is forward? No point in tracking if you are going backwards.
Do you think their droppings could go on the compost heap?

Turkey pooh. Should be okay.

From what I have heard, back the odor molecules are fewer, forward they are more numerous. Dog experts out there??

sanderson wrote:Turkey pooh.  Should be okay.

From what I have heard, back the odor molecules are fewer, forward they are more numerous.  Dog experts out there??

Makes sense, sanderson.

Wouldn't be surprised if that's how it worked. We were training a couple of our dogs in scent tracking a few years back, and although they'll sometimes wander in a circle around the trail even when they are headed in the right way, I can't recall seeing them walk backwards down a scent trail for any length of time.

It might also be an accumulation of scent in the larger sense ... a long path of diminishing scent probably doesn't attract like a long path of increasing scent, either smelled directly or blown in by a breeze.

Temps in the low to mid 60's yesterday, and nights staying in the 50's for hours. The air has been very still, the way I remembered high-pressure zones laying on top of the L.A. basin like a dead elephant. It melted some of the nice snowfall we had up in Ashland, and we need snowfall badly to power the rest of the region with water, from farmers to citizens. All the more so since last year was such a dud, water-wise. By contrast, last year it was below freezing at this time, and we were only days away from the coldest ones experienced in over 30 years.

Meanwhile, the rain and melting snow has raised the level of the Rogue River dramatically. I don't make a point of going and looking at it, but it's as high as I recall seeing it. I hope it gets colder - much colder - so some of that lovely life-giving water with us as snow that we can use throughout the year.

Weird ... spring in the middle of winter.

I'm half-tempted to plant some things early to take advantage, but the cold will probably come back at some point and lay waste to such hubris. Man proposes; god disposes. Good as a metaphor even if you're not religious.