Another winter is approaching

Well its now October 30 2015. Winter is upon us once again. This summer we had a strong windstorm that blew down a large piece of a huge big leaf maple tree at the edge of our property. Wind was stronger elsewhere, and more trees downed elsewhere. The power was out for about 8 hours here, and several days elsewhere. It happened the last week of August. In 66 years of living here I've never seen any wind like that in August. Now we have another wind storm coming up today and yet another tomorrow. More trees down are likely. Climate change? Methinks yes. The leaves are still green on about half of the trees here. Green peppers are still growing in the garden. We harvested cucumbers last week, along with some tomatoes. Scientists report this has been the hottest year globally ever recorded. We'll see. I hope the grand kids children can deal with what we are leaving them. This summer was one of the hottest and driest on record here in Washington state, where drought was declared back in April. Hmmm. On the positive side, it sure was nice having sunny day after sunny day this summer. Very cheerful, indeed. The garden did very well. Got to stop now. The wind is picking up big time. Will have to leave.

Winter has lasted too long

Its now February 5, 2015. Its raining hard and more to come, along with much wind. So far we've not had much snow this year. However, the windstorms have taken out 3 trees here. One huge fir tree about 100 feet tall was ripped out of the ground, and two other smaller trees snapped off at the base. A large part of a huge maple tree fell on our storage shed damaging the roof. That branch was a big as some trees, about 10 inches in diameter. The maple was rotten on the inside and had to be cut down. It was 100 years old and about 5 feet in diameter at the bottom.

So far, the 2015 winter weather has brought forth mild temperatures and "average" rainfall. 2014 was a near record rainfall year at this location; 52.135 inches total for the year:
http://www.enlight-inc.com/total_rainfall_2007.html

Flu season has been rough on us here: 4 weeks down time, and 1 trip to urgent care.

The water filters are still working here. Info on them can be found at slowsandfilter.org, roofwaterharvesting.org, enlight-inc.com/blog, and
shared-source-initiative.com/biosand_filter/biosand.html

With all the rainwater harvesting going on now across the nation, its too bad most people don't know about slow sand water filtration. If you read the info at the links above, you will see how easy and inexpensive it is to set one up. They are totally sustainable technology, and can be built from mostly recycled material. The sand in them never needs to be changed. In spite of all the benefits of these filters, few people use them. Although the city of Walla Walla Washington is switching over to slow sand filtration for a number of reasons:
http://union-bulletin.com/news/2014/jun/21/ww-bit-35-million-bug/

We have 2 new kitties. Alfred, and Tigger. They manage the rodent problems we have here.
When you live in a forest, there will be mice that will get into your house. Cats are good companions.