La Nina

La Nina generally brings cold, snowy, wet, active winters to the northern Cascades.   And this time, so far, she is living up to her reputation.

November in western Washington?

Looking like she will deliver a promised wet cold winter.   

 Last winter we had a very El Nino pattern, he showed up in January giving us one of the mildest, driest late winters – early springs I’ve seen in a long while.  It was amazing how much stuff I got done and how many times Dirt mowed the lawn. 

A typical pre-noon sun July-August 2010

All going down the tube by late April of course and continuing on through to August.

Not being able to plant things on time and then suffering through the dampest, foggiest, July and August. 

Today I will continue to prepare for her visit, up come the dahlias.

Why am I waiting so far into the fall to dig up the tubers?  Because they need a good stiff cold snap to develop their eyes. 

Until last week we’ve only had mild frosts.  The leaves were late to change, the apple trees still have theirs, and save for the very tenderest foliage, many things were still holding on until this last week.  Now they have gotten the chill they needed.

Why take them up at all?  Because what usually does dahlia tubers in is wet.  Wet soggy soil and the tubers are mush by spring.  Even though mine are in somewhat raised beds, they would most likely be spending a very wet winter where they are in this particular weather pattern, some of my paths have already turned to long ponds.  Even if we do end up receiving LaNina’s gift of a lot of moisture in the form of snow, inevitably it will melt each time and the ground will just get soggier and soggier and soggier, like my brain. 

Fortunately I can dig up the dahlias.  So up come the dahlias today and I’ll tuck them into the cold storage shed or the well house.   I’ll also gather up some things that will most likely fair better in dormant storage than dealing with La Nina, some might go all the way into the storage shed and some might just find themselves parked under the cedar tree.

Brug cuttings and geraniums waiting to be dealt with, (the petunias just hope to go unnoticed and live a bit longer)

Then after the last of the spring flowering bulbs are planted, I’ll deal with the brug cuttings and decide what to do with the remaining geraniums.  But that will be later this week, I know that I can’t accomplish all that just today, just the dahlia digging today.

For some reason I have a hankering for Chinese food for dinner. 

We had an awesome Thanksgiving weekend, starting off quiet and simple with just the three of us, crescendo-ing Saturday night with all our married girls and their families here with us for another bit of the feast, and simmering down Sunday to a truly restful first day of Advent.  I’m ready to get back to regular work, doing all as if unto the Lord, how ’bout you Clever Reader?

I felt very lazy last week, just a lot of housekeepinish stuff.  But last week, Dirt did a sensational job of takin’ care of my Hippy Hot Hut residents.  All through our cold blast he kept a fire going in the wood stove down in the green house.  Hopefully he will be able to get the insulation and waterproof wall up soon and then after that the Market Shed attached on the back side.

But for now he has been tending the fire nightly.  It is a great little stove, thanks Mr. McCammant, and for the most part Dirt stocks it just before bed and reloads in the morning save for the two nights where the temps plummeted, then he was stocking it in the middle of the night. 

How far did they plummet?  We got to single digits this last week.  That is mighty cold when you’ve barely had a frost harsh enough to kill the annuals, my nasturtiums were still putting out green leaves and the clematis was still budding and blooming, that was up until Monday!

We received the fore-casted snow on Monday last, but here it was still a bit warm, warm for snowy weather.  It hovered right around thirty-fiveish, the snow stuck but it melted from underneath.  Dirt got off of school a bit early that day, came home and took Bet and I to town to shop.

The week before on Monday Bet and I went to town not knowing that we were supposed to have a huge wind storm, we made it home just in the nick of time.  With the predicted and threatening white stuff I didn’t want to get stuck somewhere.  (Really, I didn’t want to deal with driving in it, better left to the man and his big huge truck, that’s what they’re for eh?)

Costco was one of the middle stops on my list, but it became our last.  When we went into the warehouse the parking lot was slushy with melty snow and hail like ice balls.  When we came out it was a wall of white.  I felt bad when Dirt drove around the five car puzzle at the exit of the parking lot.  But we really did have to scurry home to get the horses inside the barn.

When we got home, Roy, the oldest, was sporting a blanket of ice complete with icicle trim.  Poor old bugger, he went in the end stall with Ivan and the two were docile as kittens.  Roy was even shivering, I don’t recall seeing the horses shiver much.   But soon they were all better and back to their crabby boyish selves and I was exiting the end of the barn, unwelcome curry comb in hand.

All in all we received over eight inches of snow and it had accumulated before the cold arrived, that is unusual for this corner of the PNW.  Most often if we get cold it is because we have clear skies. I am sure that many of my barely ready for winter plants were saved by that wonderful turn of typical events, having that insulation of snow before the extreme cold.

FarSide was asking what this picture in my collage was.  It is the cage of quail destined for the dinner table.  They were the last batch she hatched out in August just in time for the fair.  Fortunately they all seem to be males, which makes it all the easier to claim them for the dinner table. We’re thinking of dinner on the First Day of Christmas, a partridge in pear sauce.So until then, December 26th, (or do we start count on the 25th?  I can never remember) they remain my messy little friends on Laundry House porch often under a sheet for a little extra warmth.  The day I took the picture I couldn’t lift the sheet up, it was frozen in this position. 

I can’t believe how well Mr, and Mrs Turken (no relation to the Turkey family) took the bad weather. 

Well Clever Reader, the sun is well up and duty calls.  Thanksgiving vacation is over but not the giving of thanks.  And today, I’ll be giving thanks for some good hard physical work in fairly warm non-asthma aggravating air to help burn off that extra five pounds that accumulated like the snow (very quickly) save for the fact that there has been a previous accumulation of a slow fifty underneath it!