March 10, 2014 Water, Water Everywhere!

JB moving snow with the tractor.

Friday 3/7.  Our resident frog was serenading us this morning from his home under the southeast corner of the house, which is under our dining table.  He sometimes hops about, but today he stayed there.

With days in the high 20's, and especially up to 40, we don't need a fire in the wood stove all day after the first one in the morning.  But with the days warming up so quickly, it can be hard to adjust, so we are often too warm.  Today the sun shone all afternoon and our high for the day was 40.

After lunch and getting wood, we walked down to start Miss Kitty.  There's just no way we are driving her up the road yet.

There is an excellent article in the latest Countryside Magazine by Jerri Cook entitled "While You Were Celebrating."  It is regarding a change in FDA rules to allow cancer-causing additives and GMO's into our food.  The closing lines say it all, ". . . if anyone believes that Michael Taylor (FDA official who introduced the new rule) has had some sort of epiphany and has decided to abandon his Monsanto pals in order to dance with small-scale farmers, think again.  He came to the dance with Monsanto and that's who he will be leaving with."  A must-read for any American who eats food.

Saturday 3/8.  Another overcast morning with 28 degrees.  And Spring is still trying to march right over the top of winter, but according to the weatherman, winter is not going to meekly step aside.  "After all the green beer has been drunk" winter will show its teeth once more.

This year several counties in Washington, including the one we live in, are going to allow ATV's on roads with a speed limit of 35 or less.  We would just have to get a horn, turn signals and side mirrors installed, and then we could drive Miss Kitty to town for supplies.  How's that for Universal timing?!

JB used the tractor today to move snow to the west and south of the house so when it melted the water would flow down the mountain and not towards the house.  While he was busy with that chore, I brought in wood and then walked down to start Miss Kitty.

This morning's overcast thinned around noon and the sun was able to shine through it, but at 3:30 pm when I took the dogs for their walk, it had just begun to sprinkle.  By 4:00 pm it was raining.  Our high for the day was 35.  Everything is soggy and the ground is quickly re-appearing under the trees.

Sunday 3/9.  This morning was 36 and partly overcast with a light breeze.  The sun broke through and was able to shine on us most of the day, making our high 42.  With more than four feet of snow trying to melt in just a few days, there is water everywhere: under the house, in the outhouse hole, in rivers running down our driveway.  And of course this means the arrival of mud season.  The ground is quickly getting saturated.

JB wanted to try winching Miss Kitty up the driveway, so down we went with the chain and straps.  As I mentioned before, the cable on the winch is only about 5' long but a few times I was able to actually drive her a few feet more.  JB would wrap the strap around a tree and I would wind in the winch.  This went on for more than four hours and we were only able to get her about half way up the drive.  She is going to sit there until we can drive her the rest of the way up.

Tomorrow we will be pumping out the water from under the house.  Not quite sure just where it is coming from.

This was definitely not one of our better days.  I am really tired of either having too much or too little water.  But that's just the way it is Up Here I guess.

This evening we watched two episodes of season two of Downton Abbey to relax, and it worked.

Monday 3/10.  It is 30 and mostly sunny this morning.  Not looking forward to our project for today at all . . .

Thought for the day: Sometimes you're the windshield.  Sometimes you're the bug.