We’re having little sympathy watching scenes of winter storms in the Midwest and East. Most of that weather started here and overnight we got the winds and snow the forecasters had warned about. The snow began to fall around 4:00, the wind gradually increased and by 11:30 the power went out. I heard the wind howling and shaking the trees all night. The weather service says winds hit 70 mph over night. Trisha and I dug out in the morning to make a spot to feed the birds and ducks and huddled around the fireplace until electricity was restored just before noon. By then the temperature inside was down to 55 degrees. It was the third time I cleared the driveway in the past six days. It supposed to stay cold with additional snow showers daily through Christmas Day. Two elk have breached the vinyl fence and the north-west corner of the property and I made repairs and stacked dead trees in that area to dissuade them. We’ll see if it works.

It was a spectacular winter day, cold, calm and sunny. The weather gave us a chance to shovel the almost foot a accumulated snow from the driveway and sidewalks and clear a section of the backyard for the ducks and birds. We also loaded up on groceries and batteries in preparation for a predicted storm on Saturday. The Weather Service is warning of hurricane force winds and another eight inches of snow and cautioning to be prepared for prolonged power outages. We’ve learned to take these things seriously after the eight days without electricity the area endured in December 2006.

I had a vacation day today and Trisha worked at home again, a wise choice given the terrible traffic conditions from the overnight snowfall across the whole area. Conveniently, the clear day allowed for highways to be cleared out so we were able to make the trip into Seattle for an evening performance of the Messiah at Benaroya Hall. We enjoyed the music and choral pieces while some of the soloist sections were less interesting.

We both worked from home yesterday after getting a couple of inches of wet snow over night. There were a few additional snow squals throughout the day but nothing like the dire forecasts. But today we were greeted with a fresh 6-8 inches and it’s been snowing on and off all day. Trisha has been busy keeping the ducks fed.

After all the whining about the cool June all of the sudden it’s summer. We had a high of 87 degrees yesterday and right now it’s a toasty 94, breaking the record of 91 set back in 1951. It looks like we’ll soon be back to the more normal mid-70’s for highs within a day or two. Thank goodness.

We had a visit from an orphan baby elk who’s been hanging out in the neighborhood for several weeks now. She’s looking a little better and we’re hopeful she’ll continue to grow and eventually be adopted by one of the local herds.