Skip to main content

It looks like our first non-white Christmas since moving to North Idaho.

As I had said the last post, while winter is here now, it just isn't here!

Two hours north, in the Cranbrook, Canada region, cold and snow. About two-hours east, in the Kalispell, Montana area, winter is there too with cold and snow!
This area, more like late fall continued with overcast and cloudy with temps in the low 30s at night and high 30s in the daytime. Maybe some rain in the next day or so or a trace of snow overnight to melt away with the "high" temps for what used to be normal for this time of the year.
Last week if the temps had not gone into the 40s with heavy rain by Saturday we would have some snow but the temps and the rain washed it all away.

I checked with my records from last year and on December 23rd we had gotten 4-inches of snow. Not much but still a white Christmas. Christmas Day we had heavy snow showers but not much new accumulation. This morning the low was 33 degrees with a high expected to be 36 degrees.
Sad face! I like the winters here! Stacy, not so much and the locals I've talked to are happy with the winter, lite, as it has been so far.

I know it is somewhat crazy to feel that way as I never grew up with any white Christmas, not growing up in Southern California. I guess that my Christmas brainwash of years of snow and white Christmas's are supposed to be that way is the root of the issue!
My very first white Christmas was way back in 1989 when Stacy and I went to her parent's property in Oregon near Medford and there was a lot of snow that Christmas.

Oh well, it is what it is here and the apparent new normal thanks to our climate change.

As I said last week, below is a random selection of photos taken over the year.
Starting with Christmas, 2018.



After generally lite snow most of the winter, January above, another big snowfall in February, below, of about 2-feet overnight.



Aerial via my quadcopter of the area of the main street where our offices are after the snowfall in February, 2019.  




Above, March 3rd and 5-below zero that morning!!


My hand showing the scale of Turkey tracks from an area flock that was staying nearby for a couple of months. Turkeys, the modern-day size of the Dinosaur, Velociraptor! 
Below, more tracks.



April, we decided to clear an area for a possible small house build. Above; an area picked out and below, the area cleared in early preparations. 



Above; a summer sunset in North Idaho.
Below; An early stop in Washington and on the way to Oregon on our summer trip in July 2019.




Above: Stacy sees a celebrity at the KOA along the north coast in Oregon
Below: photos from our Oregon adventures from the 2019 trip. 



A stop at the old jailhouse famous from the movie "The Goonies."



Where we stayed near Newport, Oregon above, and below, the nearby bridge of the101 Highway. 





We went to Crater lake for a couple of days too!



Then it was back to the Portland area for the last few days of the trip with day trips like this one to Multnomah Falls. 







Above: in late August we helped a friend stock up with hay for his cows. 

Below: a late summer look at our part of the area from above.





Above and below: in September we took our small two sleeper trailer for a week of conferences in the Boise area. It is ALWAYS much nicer to have your own stuff and your own room on a trip!


Below: Around Columbas Day is usually wood splitting and stacking weekend in preparation for winter.



Above: we all made a 'spooky stop' at the building we work out of for Halloween candy.


Below: and lastly, the weekend before Thanksgiving day we went to see the new edition show of the Trans Siberian Orchestra. It was again, a great experience! Just bring your earplugs!!!




Until next time! Tad

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Life in a Northern Town, In Winter

So, here we are, early in 2018. While our area gets cold, we don't get the  really cold, the cold of Montana and eastward. Where we are, in North Idaho, 30 miles from Canada, we are in a bowl of a valley. That's why we wind up with mostly overcast days in the winter. We are also pretty well protected from the strong blizzard kinds of winds and the weather patterns that are causing the conditions in Montana eastward, a parked high-pressure system that steers that super cold weather up and over this area and into Montana and eastward. We are into, what is usually some of the coldest weather of the year for this area, for a normal year! When was the last of those, normal years, thanks to climate change, whether from natural cycles or what's been changed by human expansion? Anyway, since before Christmas the area has been lows in the 8 to 10-degree (F) range (-13 C to -12 C) with highs in the upper teens to low 20's (-6 C or so). As mentioned the last post, we'd

Yeah!! The Elections are over!!! For now.....

Yes we're sure glad the elections are over, that is a really good thing. But we're even more happy that they're over because of the CONSTANT commercials on TV and the, seemed like, every night calls at home. With the stretched out length of this election "season" (as it was referred to on many programs!), and with those increasingly annoying TV adds and calls to sway votes, we quit answering the phone all together, were really bad and lasted so much longer this time around. And with our ability to see regional TV from other locations in the US and Canada, what we didn't see for more local stuff, we saw the same kinds of things for those areas instead. It was interesting at times, and thoughts of how things could have changed if the actual election had been held earlier with the rush of pro Palin, or if Obama had chosen Hillary instead of Biden, just so many things this time around had potential for some serious changes to the outcome! But we've got what

Other things from the past week

Hornets, Yellow jackets, and Wasps, a very, very bad year this year for them around here!  And not just in our area but most of North Idaho from what we've found out. In fact when Stacy stopped at Wal Mart to buy some new bait for our traps, Wal Mart was sold out and across the street at Home Depot, she was lucky to get there when a new shipment of traps and bait was being opened. She was told by the clerk that their shipments have been selling out in less than a day and as quick as a half hour as so many people are having problems with the bugs! And hospital and doctor visits have increased dramatically too due to stings according to the news. It has been both hotter and dryer than normal locally this summer so mosquitoes were way down, a very good thing!  But now in late August when the "skitos" would be low anyway, the Hornets, Yellow Jackets and Wasps, and yes we have all three types on our place!, have been going crazy quietly building nests all over the