So the worst of the storm came for us yesterday.  By morning this is how much snow was on our spool in the backyard, about 6 inches.  But it was incredibly windy and our roofed back porch was covered in snow.  So there was more than 6 inches but much of it had blown away.

My car was completely embedded in snow so Tom offered to take me to work yesterday morning in our truck.  Just before we were leaving, our toilet decided to malfunction and drain water into our bathroom.  Tom drove me to work carefully as the roads were compact snow and ice and the wind was still blowing hard.  On the way back he saw two cars ahead of him go off the road and there was a doubled-trailered semi jack-knifed in the Cook road intersection.

He made it home to find that the toilet was not draining, that the pipe to the first tank was clogged.  Also the seal on the bottom of the toilet had failed.  So he cleaned up the mess and headed to the hardware store for supplies.  The weather had worsened by this point with nearly blinding snow.  Just west of us, in the Samish flats, many roads were closed, there were many cars in the ditches, and a jackknifed semi blocked Chuckanut Drive.  Tom made it to the store and back and put in a new seal.  But he couldn’t get it to drain.  So he called the septic company that had just inspected and certified our system and decided it did not need pumping (for $371!) to ask them to come out.  They cannot come until Friday.

So Tom set up our portable toilet from our camper van in the laundry room.  So these are our facilities until we can get the tank working again.  Oh, the joys of owning an older farmhouse!

Today the snow is melting although some of the drifts on the road are still there.  It is turning into a flooded slushy mess.  The animals are all hunkered down in their shelters except the cows and the geese.  The geese are actually enjoying it.

Tom heard a loud crash in the windstorm last night, and this morning we figured out why.  This 2 foot diameter maple of our neighbors came crashing down our hill, taking out our fence and our 18 inch diameter maple.

As far as I can tell the hummingbirds and songbirds made it through with some extra feedings.  This morning I noticed some of our Eurasian collared doves enjoying the bare ground where the truck had been.  I swear when we moved here we did not have these doves.  And over the years I would hear them more and more.  Now we can see them regularly.  They are an invasive species.  Per Wikipedia, “In 1974, fewer than 50 Eurasian Collared Doves escaped captivity in Nassau, New Providence, Bahamas.  From the Bahamas, the species spread to Florida, and is now found in nearly every state in the US.”

So Tom will be cutting some maple for firewood, and we will be using our portable toilet for a bit.  Other than some grumpy animals, we weathered this storm well so far.  We shall see how bad the flooding gets with the melt though.

P.S.  In my last blog post I forgot to include a great segment I was listening to while making turkey pies.  I listen to Tom Morton’s music shows out of Shetland regularly (especially while cleaning the house), but I listened to this podcast of his about Shetland sheep with the pies.  It was really an amazing history of the sheep so I thought I would share it.