Spring, and warmer weather is in the air!

 I had started this post on April 15th, now it's the 23rd so this is now history!

Warmer temps, for a few days anyway.

After the last few weeks of more like winter than spring temps, it is pushing 70-degrees (21.1 C) today! It's been clear, not windy like the last three days, and generally nice weather. We can only hope it will continue to be good weather with it not too dry for the late summer since it has been a dry winter and spring so far. The last time it was particularly dry it was a very bad summer for Hornets. Most places in the region have many of those yellow and greenish hanging hornet traps set all over the place. We do too! 

Time to get the traps out, cleaned, and set out for the season. You have to get the traps baited and up soon as with the warm weather the hibernating queens come to and start looking for places to set up new nests. That one year though, hornets were everywhere! The forest was alive with the buzzing of thousands (millions?) of hornets. Dozens were often flying along just above the ground as the workers were searching for food and or water they might come across. Unnerving, but they could bounce off your ankles and keep flying, never taking the time to sting, not worth the effort apparently since we weren't actively going after them. 

That pandemic is so last year!

While I have yet to hear those exact words it seems like that is the thinking of many in our little area. I know, as I hear and see the stories, the pandemic is still going strong in many areas, just not here anymore, or at least not here at the moment. I am thinking it will pick up again next fall and winter but I'm making no bets as it could reappear at any time even with many thinking it is over and gone. 

Travel is way up as I see more and more RVs and campers passing through as I have a view from my work desk of the main highway through town for all points North, East or South, and West. You still can't go to Canada with the border closed and many camping places locally don't open for camping until Memorial Day or thereabouts, even with this early spring weather, but people are going places again. 

I know people, in our old area, where Covid is still a happening thing. I'd think they would be concerned about how much longer will this all last? 

It is easy to recall the lockdown going on a year ago from right now as it had only been a few weeks since everything was locked down then. Very stressful times! Who would or who wouldn't get the virus? The paper products and sanitizer shortages! There are shortages still, just different things now. The one I heard about yesterday was a looming pork shortage that will affect the 'going back to Party like it's 2019' summer and barbeque. 

Summer is coming and other things

Our plans are getting set up for this summer's projects, we have a lot to do! As always. Trees to take down, more finishing work to get done with the house. A BIG water project, we have some PEX installed that replaced the 'jungle gym' of PVC piping when we remodeled the kitchen and sink areas that Stacy's father had done with the original build of the house. 

We want to make the house all PEX and also with adding a water valve manifold instead of the current random valves, a whole house water filter set, and we need to replace the old water heater. The water heater is from 2003 and our water is very heavy in minerals, that's why the filter system, so I'm pretty sure the water heater is full of salts. 

We have gotten our garden bed about ready for planting and we are just waiting for the warmer weather to plant. We have a couple of old wheelbarrows we were going to take to our dump for the metal pile. Stacy thought why not use those for decorative planters for our squash plantings. So, drain holes drilled, planting soil in, and again just waiting for the temps to stay above the 30s before planting. By the middle of next month, May, temps should have evened out, we hope!

One of several power failures from last weekend. The photo above was from last Saturday the 17th. Our neighbor, the guy at the far left in the photo is very concerned that since we haven't had much rain or snow at all so far this winter or spring there could be a lot of fires by August when the worst of the fires are usually going in the region. So he was cutting down dead trees on his property and one is in front of him on the ground. However, at the top left corner is another he'd cut down and he said he had "misjudged the height" and as can be seen it is laying diagonally and on the power lines. 

Stacy and I were in our house and suddenly everything flashed, once then twice, then lights out and all the battery backup devices were squealing due to no power. 

Luckily, this time was still light as it was in the afternoon. 

We walked out front to see if we could see what happened and saw the tree and knew what the problem was. Stacy called 9-1-1 and reported the incident. 

The photo above is almost at the end and almost two hours after the tree fell. First, the fire department came to "protect" the area, then almost an hour later the truck at the right of the photo is the power company, for this area our power company is "Northern Lights." 

Well, he went to the end of the street and turned off the power to the lines, then he came back and got a chainsaw out, and cut down the dead tree, and moved it away from the power lines. 

After chatting with the firemen for a while he turned on the power again and it was all fixed. 

Then the next day! 

It had been predicted in the weather, and there was a high wind warning for Sunday from 11 am to 8 pm. While it had been a bit windy during the day, nothing of the magnitude from the warnings happened in our area. 

In the evening we had a couple of very early season thunderstorms and the lights started flickering several times over a couple of hours. 

Just after 9 pm, everything went dark. I waited about a half-hour with the battery backups beeping and squealing but the power didn't come back on. 

So I went around and turned all the backups off for quiet and pitch black dark and we went to bed. 

The power came on a little before 1am. 

The next morning there were regional news stories about the thousands of people without power as while we didn't get the predicted winds, the region did! 

Trees down, powerlines down, all over the area. We were lucky to get our power back so soon!

OK any readers, you get a scoop on next year's Christmas card photo. 

Stacy and I put up an outside Christmas tree this past fall because I had hopes of getting some photos I have been wanting to get of a Christmas tree in the snow! 

I had high hopes for the winter to come but then it turned out that we only had two snowfalls all winter with enough snow to get any shots like this one! 

This is one of the nights and from the group that came out the best. 

Till next time, Tad