Weather mania

You've probably heard it on the news: Western Washington is in the midst of some pretty horrible weather. Those of us in the south sound received 12-20 inches of snow Tuesday into Thursday (14" at our house), followed by freezing rain and temperatures that wouldn't rise sufficiently. Tree limbs - or entire trees - broke into power lines across the region. At this point, we've been without power for 50+ hours and it may be a few more days before it's restored. Paul ingeniously collected melting snow (once the temperatures started to rise) from the downspout to keep the cattle trough filled. Our giant fir in the pasture, the one you've seen in so many photos here, lost so many limbs it's essentially bald on one side. We'll be cleaning debris for awhile. But, our generator is keeping us warm and fed (by microwave), the cattle are fine, and we have family 20 minutes away who DO have power so we can shower (and use the Internet!). We know now that our home's wiring needs attention - we can't figure out why the wired-in generator won't run the well pump, an annoying development - so we'll have to modify our to-do list for summer. Life could be worse, though. We plan to work on a more thorough emergency plan and kit, something the experts always recommend and something we've rolled our eyes at a bit (given we're so resourceful...note the sarcasm). Really, we're faring fine, but it could be worse, and we don't want to find ourselves there. If the cities to our south didn't have power - and therefore, working gas stations, at least until the Thurston County residents take it all - this would be a very different situation.

Hopefully power will return by Monday so I can return to work (our agency was closed county-wide Wednesday and Thursday, and I took Friday off). I look forward to our lives returning to normal. A hot shower in my own house will have never felt so good!