Yes, this week has been a very early taste of what our area weather should be like, in late July or early August, and not "normally" in early June!
Since last Saturday the temps have generally been low to mid 90s which is well above the usual area temps for this time of year with the lows remaining a relatively warm mid 50s for much of the week. Records have been falling all over the area with the hot temps in the last few days.
Being so small our area has no TV stations of its own so our local TV stations are from Spokane, Washington. The TV weather was talking about records of high temps being broken from the 1800s and 1930s this past week.
The old normal temps would be highs in the 70s and lows in the 40s for this time of the year in our region. And that's the question I've posed before, when does all this weird and unusual weather, which has been happening the last few years now, become the 'new' normal with references to "normal" being forgotten?
The way the weather is here, back in the California desert, the instant the summer sun came over the horizon at sunrise you felt the heat from the sun and the temps very quickly would rise. And while it would often still be quite warm if not hot, the afternoon also would have winds and would usually feel a little cooler after sunset. Up here, the sun is up over the mountains now around 4:45ish but it stays comfortable until around noon or so.
The afternoons are when it really heats up this far North! Yes it is often windy, or at least breezy during the day. But usually the winds die down with the sunset and then it just stays hot! This last week its been into the 70s until around midnight. And those hot, humid still air evenings are not the best! Those mosquitoes love it though if you venture out at dusk before dark.
But anyway, the temps are to go down by the weekend, back closer to 'normal' for the area with a dry cold front blowing through starting today, Thursday. As predicted the winds have already started and all the visible flags are straight out with the winds.
Ah, but also with these winds are the "red flag" warnings in a large part of central Washington and parts of Idaho because of those same hot cooking temps that have dried out much of the forest. Those red flag warnings are something I used to hear often in California. Only the last 3 years or so have those warnings become pretty common in our area of the North West as well.
This is also the time of year, now and the next few months, where weekend hours are at a premium with all the things that need to get done in the timeframe. Pretty much weekly mowing, weeding and cleaning out dead branches that are all over the ground from the winter and winds, lots to do!
One thing that's an advantage for us this year is last fall our neighbor had a company come out to clear off some of his forest so he could utilize his land a bit better. Unfortunately for him the company pretty much butchered his trees taking out way more than he'd wanted removed and leaving large stumps and piles of scrap and excess wood and trees they felt were not good enough to use.
In this area one can quite often have logging done for the worth of the trees on your property.
While our neighbor did make some money from this logging, a few thousand dollars, it was going to cost more than he made to get the mess from the previous company cleaned up. So what he's doing now is letting the piles continue dry over the summer and the neighbor on his other side will, next fall and early winter, drag them out and burn the piles, called slash piles, on his already open property.
For us in all this is his permission to get whatever wood we want from those piles for our winter firewood supply. They do not have a wood stove or fire place in their house, we have 2 wood stoves. So we have gone over twice so far and spent several hours chainsawing and pulling out trees we can use for firewood, de-limbed and cut down into sizes that we can manage. And there's a lot of wood to get!, and it's a lot of work to do.
Other than above, Stacy is about 600 miles away in Boise for another day. Last Monday we both had to drive down to Coeur D'Alene for meetings that included me this time for the departments Diversion Program. The next day Stacy had to go back down, about 2 hours each way if a round trip, for more meetings then afterwords she had to take a flight down to Boise for even more meetings. We will both be glad when those trips are no longer necessary.
Oh, and lastly, last Saturday was our annual eye exams. We go annually as Stacy wears contacts and so needs annual check ups, so I just get checked too. Both of us are doing fine, eyes only slightly off from last year. For me I had my main pair of glasses 'upgraded' last year but my second pair I'd held off because of the cost. So this year the doctor recommended I upgrade those lenses to my new prescription and skip my main pair to save some money, so that's what I did.
Still, while I feel we overall have good health insurance, the optical aspect of the policy isn't that great in my opinion. my 2 lenses, only the lenses, cost over $300.00!! And our insurance paid only $15.00 of it!
Yes, I'd like to see a better co-pay!
Til The Next Instalment!
Since last Saturday the temps have generally been low to mid 90s which is well above the usual area temps for this time of year with the lows remaining a relatively warm mid 50s for much of the week. Records have been falling all over the area with the hot temps in the last few days.
Being so small our area has no TV stations of its own so our local TV stations are from Spokane, Washington. The TV weather was talking about records of high temps being broken from the 1800s and 1930s this past week.
The old normal temps would be highs in the 70s and lows in the 40s for this time of the year in our region. And that's the question I've posed before, when does all this weird and unusual weather, which has been happening the last few years now, become the 'new' normal with references to "normal" being forgotten?
The way the weather is here, back in the California desert, the instant the summer sun came over the horizon at sunrise you felt the heat from the sun and the temps very quickly would rise. And while it would often still be quite warm if not hot, the afternoon also would have winds and would usually feel a little cooler after sunset. Up here, the sun is up over the mountains now around 4:45ish but it stays comfortable until around noon or so.
The afternoons are when it really heats up this far North! Yes it is often windy, or at least breezy during the day. But usually the winds die down with the sunset and then it just stays hot! This last week its been into the 70s until around midnight. And those hot, humid still air evenings are not the best! Those mosquitoes love it though if you venture out at dusk before dark.
But anyway, the temps are to go down by the weekend, back closer to 'normal' for the area with a dry cold front blowing through starting today, Thursday. As predicted the winds have already started and all the visible flags are straight out with the winds.
Ah, but also with these winds are the "red flag" warnings in a large part of central Washington and parts of Idaho because of those same hot cooking temps that have dried out much of the forest. Those red flag warnings are something I used to hear often in California. Only the last 3 years or so have those warnings become pretty common in our area of the North West as well.
This is also the time of year, now and the next few months, where weekend hours are at a premium with all the things that need to get done in the timeframe. Pretty much weekly mowing, weeding and cleaning out dead branches that are all over the ground from the winter and winds, lots to do!
One thing that's an advantage for us this year is last fall our neighbor had a company come out to clear off some of his forest so he could utilize his land a bit better. Unfortunately for him the company pretty much butchered his trees taking out way more than he'd wanted removed and leaving large stumps and piles of scrap and excess wood and trees they felt were not good enough to use.
In this area one can quite often have logging done for the worth of the trees on your property.
While our neighbor did make some money from this logging, a few thousand dollars, it was going to cost more than he made to get the mess from the previous company cleaned up. So what he's doing now is letting the piles continue dry over the summer and the neighbor on his other side will, next fall and early winter, drag them out and burn the piles, called slash piles, on his already open property.
For us in all this is his permission to get whatever wood we want from those piles for our winter firewood supply. They do not have a wood stove or fire place in their house, we have 2 wood stoves. So we have gone over twice so far and spent several hours chainsawing and pulling out trees we can use for firewood, de-limbed and cut down into sizes that we can manage. And there's a lot of wood to get!, and it's a lot of work to do.
Other than above, Stacy is about 600 miles away in Boise for another day. Last Monday we both had to drive down to Coeur D'Alene for meetings that included me this time for the departments Diversion Program. The next day Stacy had to go back down, about 2 hours each way if a round trip, for more meetings then afterwords she had to take a flight down to Boise for even more meetings. We will both be glad when those trips are no longer necessary.
Oh, and lastly, last Saturday was our annual eye exams. We go annually as Stacy wears contacts and so needs annual check ups, so I just get checked too. Both of us are doing fine, eyes only slightly off from last year. For me I had my main pair of glasses 'upgraded' last year but my second pair I'd held off because of the cost. So this year the doctor recommended I upgrade those lenses to my new prescription and skip my main pair to save some money, so that's what I did.
Still, while I feel we overall have good health insurance, the optical aspect of the policy isn't that great in my opinion. my 2 lenses, only the lenses, cost over $300.00!! And our insurance paid only $15.00 of it!
Yes, I'd like to see a better co-pay!
Til The Next Instalment!
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