I know we have no reason to complain about the weather at the moment. We're not freezing in subzero temperatures and we're not digging out from underneath a mountain of snow. Well, that may change, according to the National Weather Service.
But I'll think about that tomorrow.
Living in the eastern 'burbs of Portland, we're more than accustomed to what is commonly called the East Wind. Commonly, I say -- not fondly. It's a bone chilling wind that whips down the Columbia River Gorge capable of freezing puddles, pipes and nose hairs. It's legend that folks out here put bricks on their garbage cans so they don't have to replace the lid. We KNOW wind.
Several years back, one of the TV stations had a contest to name the East Wind. It was a big deal, hyped everywhere and there were some rather creative names submitted. I don't recall if there was any sort of prize for winning, other than bragging rights, but entries poured in.
Anyway, they awarded the honor to some yahoo on the west side, who came up with the name Chinook Wind. Obviously, this person never spent a winter out here, or he or she wouldn't have thought of something so ordinary. I mean a Chinook is a fish -- a very determined fish -- but not a hostile animal. And the winter wind out here is hostile.
This past weekend, the wind was beyond hostile. It fell more into the wicked category. John has a weather station on top of the house that clocked nearly 60 mile an hour gusts. (how the instruments stayed anchored on the roof is still a mystery) I've lived out here over 30 years and never, repeat never, seen, heard or felt wind like this.
I tried three times to post about the storm, but we had numerous bumps in the power, which of course always coincided with my being online. I did discover that one outlet in my power strip fried during a bump and well, the computer itself has been rather touchy ever since. So besides replacing three sections of fencing (which fell like dominoes), guess a computer upgrade will be forthcoming as well.
From the deck, this is looking to the north, If you look toward the top of the photo, where the tall shrubs are, you can see our neighbor lost a whole section of his fence too.
Also from the deck, this is looking toward the south. The wind blew through both fences and actually upended and moved the swing. The fence panel in the foreground was torn completely off the hinges attached to the gate.
That's obviously the dog's house. Used very little since he's mostly an in-house kinda guy anymore, but it weighs a ton and was tossed around like a Tinker Toy. The humor in this is that the dog now has the run of about four different yards that he normally has no access to. And of course none of the owner's of those yards have dogs. The neighbors who share the fence in the above photo used to have a dog when we got Joey as a pup 8 years ago. The animals became fast friends and would dig under the fence so they could play in each other's yards. To keep Joey in his own space, John poured cement under the bark wherever they dug holes. I've been having nightmares about replacing the fence in the spring and having to dig out all that cement.
For the moment, all is calm. But this winter has been so strange and unusual that I'm far from trusting that we'll just return to good old fashioned rain until spring.
John's "needs" are on the right, Joey's on the left. Yes, all three bottles belong to the dog. The plastic bag is actually an IV bag we tie over the bandage on his foot every time he goes outside.
