Storm watch 2016

It looks like we might actually get our 'historical storm' they keep telling us about on the news.  I woke up to sheet lightning shaking the house this morning.  It's just rain now, but here's a pretty nifty link to see how the wind off out the coast.  If the eye of the storm goes just a touch north, we're in for some trouble.  

I'm looking forward to it!

I've got my beer, I've got my garden, I've got nowhere to go until Sunday.  It's just a matter of getting the dishes done before the power goes out and we have no well water.  Kind of wish my woodstove was also a cooker, but we have backup cooking if we run out of leftovers.  


Any of you guys weathering a storm?  
What do you do when one's on its way?  Hunker down?  Get out of town?  
How does your garden stand up to the weather?  
Got any pictures?

Let's chat about the weather.

I'm in Lake Stevens right now (about 10-20 miles east of Everett, WA), so about an hour south of you.
We are just inland from where the weather funnels in through Juan de Fuca.

It has been continuous rain, with gusty winds for two days straight.
Nothing severe, just wet & blustery.

I feel a little bit guilty enjoying the storm.  It sure is nice having a homestead and everything I need right here.  Hunker down, watch the trees fall over, feel glad I'm not on the East coast where the news just told me they had 160km/h winds.  

The only thing I don't like is being so dependent on grid power.  The last time we had a proper storm we were without power for about 10 days.  It's not normally that bad but sometimes I feel it would be easier if I could just fix my own electricity.  

That is a beautiful map of the world's wind.

We had some wind yesterday, and a bit of rain. Today it's just cloudy.

I'm a bit jealous of you guys getting all the rain!  Down here in central Louisiana, we haven't gotten ANY rain in a month.  Our poor farm is dry but our goats are loving it, since it lets them pretty much ignore the electric fence (for now -- maniacal laughter).  Guess you guys in the NW are getting your version of a tropical storm, so have fun!

I just love how pretty this wind picture is.

I've been watching the current storm move north along the coast.  A few more degrees north and we're in for trouble, a few more to the south and the weather warning was all for nothing.  I kind of hope we get the storm otherwise people will stop caring about weather advisories.  

Three days of rain, not heavy here but not that light either, the moisture has reached half an inch into the soil.  That's it.  I dug in the garden today and under that half inch of moisture, everything is still DUST!  Well, soil dust, but dusty soil none the less.  

Hey R. - You okay? Barn still standing? You still standing? Got any beer left?

Went through most of the beer waiting for the storm.  We got a strong breeze, almost a wind, for a few hours.  A few days there with flickering lights (so I turned off my electronics), but alas, no storm.

Down the road, they got a storm.

Up the road, they got more storm.

But not here.

There are a lot of hills, ridges and valleys here that either shelter or funnel the wind, rain and snow.  Most of the year the prevailing wind is from the east to south-southeast.  This is where most of the weather comes from.  We have a hill - they call it a 'mount' to the south-southeast that splits the weather into the two valleys either side of us, and to the east and southeast, we have a double ridge line that breaks the wind.  The wind goes over the ridges, dumps much of the rain, then as it comes down into our valley, it warms up a bit.  But, on days when the weather comes from the southwest or from the north or northwest... That's when things get interesting for us.  

These microclimates are really visible here and it was great fun watching how the landscape broke up the wind.  I did one of those permaculture design courses online - just an introduction - and we mapped out vectors and stuff like that.  Now I'm beginning to think that this might be what they were talking about.  It seems like a great idea for designing anything on the farm, but such an old idea dressed up as something new, I didn't recognize it at first.  

Let's keep the storm watch going.  Anyone else got a storm?

Whenever there's the threat of bad weather anymore, the H and I say to each other..."It's not our turn again. We just had our turn." We seem to get one after another. I've learned to never again say that we have the prettiest place in the neighborhood, last time I did (a few years ago now) the tornado hit.

The other week, Sept. 27-30, it rained all week. Had a 4 day total of 11.75". We had nickel size hail and a small tornado (1/4 mile away this time. We took the one before on the chin). The next week, the NWS was saying hurricane Matthew is heading up the E coast. "No!!! We can't take more rain!"

We have a creek 15' off the back of the house. It's beautiful most days. It got up to OMG level in the nearly 12". We rebuilt our rerouting dam twice during the rains. The dam sends half of the water down what used to be the creek bed before the creek decided it wanted to be closer to us a few years back. That way the section that passes the house has only half the volume of the rest of the creek. We've packed rock into washed out banks since. The water moved rocks that neither of us can move and they make an eerie drumming sound rolling down the creek in the floods. H is out in the creek right now fixing more sections of it.

There was a barn with a waterwheel up the creek until the tornado took it and another barn/dog pen down. We needed the dog pen so that barn was rebuilt first. They were very old structures (Our house was built in 1880, I don't know the age of the barns.) , but still sturdy and usable until Mother Nature ripped them down. She and I are still not speaking to each other.

Meh.  San Francisco has no weather.  Weather-wise, it's unbelievably boring...sigh.  I'd say we got about 1/2" an inch of gentle, light rain.  I just went and looked at the new swale I dug, and it's pretty wet down about 1/2 an inch.  Under that, dry as a mummy.

When the storm got up to the straight it was sucking the air up through Puget sound  on the Key Peninsula the wind would go up one side then quickly switch to the other so we got a lot of micro bursts and 50mph gusts but no damage. They calculated that if it had tracked 50 mils further west the winds would have been much worse in in the sound and islands.

The good news is my ponds are now full so I can cut the flax and ret it for you if you want.

I think the time right after a big storm has passed is a very interesting time. You assess the damage. Notice the changes or obstacles you now have to work with and note that they're not all bad. Make new plans. Count your blessings. It brings friends and neighbors closer sometimes. Our neighbors are wonderful!

I also think the sky looks gorgeous afterwards. There's usually some really pretty clouds. The dust gets washed off all the leaves making them look greener. The rocks in our creek are more colorful and cleaner.

You also feel the tension release and are able to breathe. I know my poor dog feels that way. She trembles uncontrollably in a storm anymore, even a far off sound of thunder scares her.

Glad you guys are okay.

Hurricane party! I evacuated the beach when hurricane Mathew rolled through here. We were extremely fortunate that the storm moved out a bit and that it sped up, coming at low tide instead of at high tide as had been predicted. I find it amazing as a non-native Floridian just how unprepared everyone around me is for these things. Death and taxes aren't the only certain things in life; tropical storms are always coming.

Besides having other people freak out it wasn't too bad for us here. The neighbors' roof peeled back and a lot of it landed in our yard. It sucks for him, but with poor roof design (and implementation in his case) it was bound to happen. Many people lost shingles but we didn't sustain any damage. The 'hurricane proof' pier at the end of the street got taken by the ocean. Most of the damage I saw was from trees. It has been so long since we have had a proper storm here that there were millions of trees ready to shed some wood. There are piles of branches in front of houses all over the place and it will probably be that way for a while.

On the positive side, I managed to get a bunch of nice Red Maple and Southern Red Cedar logs within walking distance. It's insane how the local Woodcraft store charges more for plain hard maple than it does for exotic South American species of wood. I knew a time would present itself for me to get some more free maple and I was prepared to jump on it. The cedar should dry pretty quickly, which means I can make some outdoor furniture with it next spring. I need to go down to my property and see how many trees are down. There are no houses at my end of the street there, and no one drives through, so it will be up to me to clear the road. The standing dead trees are probably on the ground which saves me some hassle. Overall this hurricane was a net win for me!

Pretty tame around here. Rain, light wind, but no storm. A couple of strong gusts flipped The Man's tarp shed. Then . . . just rain. No excitement here.