Yes, it was one long HOT summer!
In addition to the record-breaking heat along the coastal ranges in Oregon, Washington, and into Canada, we saw temperatures in this Northern Idaho area I NEVER thought we would see again after moving away from the high desert of Southern California in 2006!
The hottest temp was an afternoon high of 112 degrees (44.44 C) on June 30th. But, hot, hot days, too warm evenings, no rain so dusty and dry.
Record heat, the hottest weather ever recorded in Idaho, and, according to the stories, only the beginning of the heat that will probably be the "new normal" from this point on. Seems that the same "high-pressure bubble" that causes the cold and snow of winter weather to almost completely bypass our region of the pacific northwest in winter causes record heat in our same region of the pacific northwest in the summer!
Since my last post, mainly, we have just been living and trying to avoid getting Covid. Stacy and I got our vaccinations in January and February this year, and now that we can, we'll be getting our booster shots later this week.
I just hope I don't have the same reaction as I did from the second shot I got in February. All over aches and pain, no nausea or stomach problems, just felt pretty bad for a couple of days.
Currently, Covid-D is going pretty strong in North Idaho with our county having the highest covid cases to population ratio in the state. We personally have known several people that have died from Covid this go around, most all unvaccinated, which is really too bad and unnecessary with free and available vaccinations available to anyone!
Yesterday, Stacy found out that her 99-year old father tested positive for Covid in their weekly testing at the assisted living facility. We will have to see how all progresses as he was, as all residents were, vaccinated in January. However, at that age, Covid at all is not a diagnosis to get!!
With summer being so hot we, unfortunately, were unable to get many of the house jobs done we had been planning to get done. Including cutting down several trees on our property. We did cut down seven of the several trees we want to take out, mainly for being in poor shape to dead due to the effects of climate change. Those trees taken are also our firewood for the winters.
So near the end of September, we spent a couple of weekends cutting down and cutting up those trees, and then over Columbus day we split and stacked the cut-up wood.
These two photos above are from getting three of the larger trees taken down. The bottom photo has a shot of our dog Trixie running in it. We got her in August at 8-weeks old, she's a miniature Daschound. And for being a six-pound puppy she owns us!
Above and Below: One of the trees we cut down had a very good tree ring set and Stacy counted the rings out and found that, that one Cedar tree was 120 years old!
These two photos, above and below, are of the woodpile before we started to split the wood and then while splitting those 14-inch cut logs into pieces. The top photo is deceptive in the scale. The photo not doing justice for the actual size of the pile!
Below: Done for that day we added about 3-cords of wood to our over a cord leftover from last winter. Unless what many people think will be a bad winter actually becomes a reality, and I'm very skeptical, we should be good for this winter. There are still about fifteen or twenty trees we will have to take down either later this fall or next spring so the wood for next winter, 2022/2023 should be well taken care of, and our little forest healthier too.
Fall colors.
I have read that many areas aren't getting what would be normal fall colors in their trees. We had our area trees turning for fall.
Above: Although 'evergreen' Cedar trees do shed a bunch of their 'needles' every year.
Above: We have Birch and Cottonwood trees on our property, this is a Birch all yellow.
Above: With some weather systems blowing through, many of our trees lost most, or all, of their leaves. these trees still had some then, now they don't.
Above: looking at the trees across the street and many of their trees are Larch and go all gold and yellow.
As mentioned above, there are some who have said that "The Farmer's Almanac" and some similar sources are predicting a 'heavier than normal winter' for 2021/2022.
OK, so, what exactly is "normal" anymore? I had read and heard that "normal" is now taken from weather and temps from 2010 to now.
Except, the last three winters have been progressively dryer and dryer with last year's winter almost no snow. The most we got at our house all winter was about 8-inches at one time.
I never even started the snow thrower all last winter. We never got any buildup because invariably with any storm cold enough to produce snow, within a day temps would warm up and a storm track with rain would come across from the California or Oregon coast washing away the snow, or much of it.
The locals are hoping for a snow season like the one from 1996, which we didn't even know this town existed back then as we lived in California.
Anyway, that snowfall had 10-foot tall snowdrifts, buried houses, and many collapsed roofs from it all.
The most that has happened since we've been here was the "Snowpocolipse" of February 2017 when overnight the area got a snow dump of 3 to 4 feet overnight.
That was exciting!
It took us a day to dig out of our driveway and around our house, we lost power for 3-days. Some we knew had no power for over 2-weeks!
Somewhere in the Ether of this blog's archives would be the post about that event.
We were concerned we would have a building or roof collapse, we didn't, but many homes and businesses did.
Well, a brief update to let people know we're still here!
Until next time!
Tad
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