Our updates for all of you

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 her...

Well, what can I say? I have no excuse as to why I have pretty much let this Blog flounder and not keep up with it for far too long. Now it is almost winter, almost the year, 2020. The days are very short, sunup around 8 am sunset around 3:30 to 4 pm or earlier when the weather is overcast. We got over 6-inches of snow yesterday before, as predicted, the snow turned to rain overnight and became a mess today. Oh well, the way of our weather for the last few years. It gets cold to really cold when dry, then when there's snow it warms to rain the next day or so. The new normal apparently. The weather pattern for this region has shifted and to get to the winter we used to have you must travel a bit north into Canada or head east to Montana. It has seemed that Kalispell and to the east is where winter lives now. So, what has been going on this past year in our world? Well, 2019 started with our son and his wife living with us. They had come to visit in the summer of 2018 and de...

So, I and many others had been believing that our 2018/2019 winter was going to be abnormally dry with our two snow 'events' of about 5 inches from December to Mid-January, which used to be when winter was the strongest in our region. Above: Taken January 26th, this was what winter was looking like it was going to be for this season. Mainly cold with very light snowfall. I had not even used the snow thrower yet this season at all due to such light accumulations. The snow to too shallow to use the machine! Above: About the same spot as the top photo, taken February 16th after the two feet of snow from overnight of the 11th to the 12th. I was snow throwing again on the 16th due to some light accumulation the night before as much of our snowfall to actually accumulate has been happening overnight to the next morning.  Above: A bit more of our driveway, closer to the house.  Above:  Taken this morning, our driveway. Cleared to get in at t...

Happy new year to any and all readers of my, on again, off again, blog. In our little corner of the world, and with stories of record cold and snowfall in areas that don't normally get that type of weather, our winter has been almost no snow and well warmer than any winter since we've been living in this mountainous area of the North West since 2006. Yes, there has been some snowfall, we got about two inches just before Christmas Eve so we did have a 'white Christmas' but then it warmed and rained. And that scenario has been the constant here. Even with many "Winter Storm Warnings" in the past month, none of the storms have been of any consequence here with no precipitation at all occurring or smatterings of snow locally, like less than a half inch. I've been keeping weather records since before 2016, but the before 2016 records were lost so I am more careful now by using Google Sheets, keeping it "in the cloud" so I won't lose it like ...

So far, this fall of 2018 has been dry and cold in our northern town! This morning it was a cold 19 degrees (-7 C) and we've had the temperatures staying around that 20-degree range (-6 C) and getting in the 38 (+3 C) to 41 (+5 C) for the "high". This time last year we had already had about a foot of snow and quite a few days of rain but the temps were in the 30s at night and 40s for the highs. A couple of weeks ago we did have the first snow of the winter of 2018/2019. Only an inch and it has since melted but there will be more snow coming! Maybe tomorrow night as a storm system is pushing through for Thanksgiving day and the weekend. Stacy has been inspired to try to make hard candies for possibly some holiday gifts. On YouTube, she came across the videos from the Hercules Candy Company, a family run company in the New York area where one of the family members began recording and posting videos of how it is done the old fashion ways of pr...

So, to continue with last weeks story. In August, Stacy finally got the trailer she's been wanting all along. Yes, while I like the larger, around 28 to 30 foot or so, RVs, Stacy has kept the idea that smaller is better. Smaller can go pretty much anyplace you'd want to camp and our 5th wheel, at 34-feet long, while it can go most places, it can't go 'anyplace' due to the length. When we got the 5th wheel in July 2017, I was surprised Stacy was willing and even suggested, we go for it trading in our 33-foot travel trailer to get the Jayco. Again, the "Wildcat Maxx" was a nice travel trailer. It had made several short and two long trips in the almost two years we'd owned it. We lucked out as in an era of the rapid assembly to make the crazy sales numbers the RV industry has been having, the Wildcat was "completed on a Wednesday by happy Amish at the factory" as we didn't have any of the build issues I still read about from the appar...