In like a lion

Whew. March has come in like a lion! Let me catch you up on the last few days.

We knew we were going to be hit by a storm on Thursday with high wind and heavy rain. We were used to high winds in our last home, but it's far rarer here in our current place. The weather report said power outages were "expected." Accordingly, we battened down the hatches.

This meant catching up on laundry...

...bringing in the high-profile cushions from the porch rockers (except, crucially, the seat cushions with I naively thought would be fine) ...

...and filling water containers. We always keep stored water, of course, but I filled up two 50-gallon barrels in the barn (we drain them during the colder months lest they freeze) and topped off some water pitchers in the kitchen.

Don, meanwhile, is in the process of building a shed next to the barn. He frantically worked to get the roof on before the storm came in. He got as far as getting the plywood on top and the tar paper nailed down, but that was it.

The storm rolled in just at the start of my workweek, when I'm literally glued to the computer for three days of 11-hour days. For this reason, when we first moved into this house and realized how unreliable the power grid is during any adverse weather, we have full battery and internet backups for my laptop.

The rain held off, but the wind picked up, stronger and stronger. Sure enough, about 10:30 am Thursday morning – long before the wind even reached its peak – the power went out. I plugged my computer into the battery backup...

...and connected into the wireless hotspot (since our regular internet was down).

My workday proceeded fairly normally, just doing my online job, but Don and Older Daughter were trapped in the house and frankly bored. Don couldn't do any of the outdoor projects he wanted, and Older Daughter couldn't get any work done on the shop tools (since they're electric). They got a lot of reading done.

The wind was the highest we've ever seen here. This little outdoor carpet on the back porch kept getting blown off – literally – so I finally anchored it with a bag of dog food.

We have a small table on wheels on the front porch, and we forgot to lock the wheels. A gust sent the table spinning into the rails...

...and flung both a snow shovel (that had been leaning against it) and a thermometer (that had been resting on top it) to the ground below.

And it ripped off all – all! – of the tar paper Don had stapled to the roof of the new shed off. We saw pieces everywhere.

Around 3 pm, the rain moved in, and it grew so dark outside that it seemed like evening. This is how dark it was inside the house.

When evening came, we lit lamps.

We wiled away the evening reading books and talking. Because it was chilly on her side of the house, Older Daughter opened the connecting door and let Frumpkin (her cat) wander around.

The next morning, concerned that the refrigerator was getting too warm, Don used our Bluetti to power the fridge for an hour or so, just long enough to bring the inside temp back to safe levels.

He did the same thing to the chest freezer.

Then he hauled out the old military generator we bought from a neighbor a few years ago, and recharged the Bluetti. It wasn't really that the Bluetti needed recharging so much as Don wanted to see how well it worked to recharge the battery pack. (Short answer: very well.) We've bought new generators over the years, but nothing beats this old workhorse. As with any power outage, it's a good opportunity to test our preps.

The yard was soggy with the previous day's downpour, and littered with branches.

The wind had ripped the netting off the blueberries and peach trees, and toppled the cattle panels. We got out there and pulled everything back together.

As the day progressed, since Don was listening to the scanner, we learned power had been restored everywhere except around our place. Sure enough, late Friday afternoon we saw the power company's vehicles driving around the neighborhood, as if looking for the source of the disruption. (For the record, these workers are among the greatest unsung heroes of our society.)

Thanks to their dedicated efforts, power was restored around 2:30 on Friday. Suddenly life was back to normal.

For a couple hours, anyway. Late in the afternoon, a sudden microburst of wind hit us so hard, the house literally shook. It picked up one of the porch rockers and flung it across the deck.

The seat cushion was blown to the ground below. Note to self: Next time, remove all the seat cushions when it's windy.

Things were calm for about 24 hours. In the interim, we made sure our battery packs were re-charged.

Then last night, after dark, a sudden burst of rain started dumping on us. The temperature dropped and the rain turned to snow, blowing sideways in the wind. Within half an hour, three inches of snow had been plastered everywhere.

This morning revealed another winter landscape, and the temperature had dropped to 22F.

I should add that none of this weather drama – outside of Thursday's wind and rain – was predicted. Go figure.

So yeah, March is coming in like a lion. But hey, at least we're not in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, where people are experiencing a blizzard described as "as bad as it gets."

Riddle me this

Question: How do you photograph wind?

Answer: Watch some weeping willows.

A winter's worth of weather in two weeks

Up until mid-February or so, we had a very mild winter. Temps were often chilly, but the ground was bare.

Here's the orchard on January 25, for example:

Our hazelnuts had catkins on them...

...and all our young fruit trees had winter buds.

Mr. Darcy could carry branches along the road bare of snow.

Just before Valentine's Day, the pattern continued: cold and sunny and dry.

The morning sun shone through golden ice crystals.

And still the weather stayed dry.

And then the great Celestial Weather Machine did a total 180 degrees, and winter came.

It started on February 14 with a powerful snow squall that dumped several inches of snow. We actually had thunder and lightning during the snowstorm -- that was something to see!

(That's Mr. Darcy lying down in the road.)

Then the skies cleared and the temperature dropped like a rock. We had three days of -6F temps.

In anticipation of the cold temps, I cleaned out the chicken coop to make sure the birds all had soft, fluffy straw for warmth.

I think the ladies appreciated it.

I was worried a calf would be born during this cold snap, but thankfully all the cows held off.

That calves that were born before the cold snap -- Hickory and Ferdinand -- did fine. It was a funny thing to see such tiny calves cavorting in the bitter cold and snow.

The bellies full of warm milk helped.

During the cold snap, all the animals activated their solar panels and stood broadside to the sun.

Then the temps rose and the ripping snow came roaring back in.

And then came the dreaded weather prediction of wind -- supposedly gusts up to 60 mph. When we lose power, we lose water. Having been through the November 2015 windstorm that devastated our region, we took no chances. We filled oil lamps, put fresh batteries in all the flashlights, and topped off household water.

We filled a second livestock tank as well. We knew it would freeze, but not solidly, and we could knock the ice out.

We both took showers, and I caught up on laundry.

Thankfully the power stayed on during that windy day, but that doesn't mean we didn't have other windy days -- which, coupled with snow, meant drifts.

Don tackled the drifts in our driveway, and heroic neighbors with plow blades tackled the road.

We did get some superb alpineglow one evening...

...before once again snow roared in.

It pasted every surface...

...and dusted the inside of the barn, leaving a perfect silhouette of a pitch fork.

The chickens mostly stayed in their coop, otherwise they sank.

When Don plowed a clearing, all the cows and calves hung around in the cleared space.

When we took Mr. Darcy out for a run, he got "jingle balls" of snow adhering to his fur.

And then -- quite abruptly -- the spate of bad weather eased and blue skies and warmer temperatures moved in.

The snow will take quite a while to melt -- take a gander at the garden, where all the tires are still buried -- but we'll take what we can get.

Even the road in to our place is becoming more slush than ice.

We've been getting flocks of hoary redpolls all over...

...and the occasional tiny spider on the snow.

So I'd like to think this portends early spring, but I don't want to jinx it by saying so.

We'll just have to wait and see.