Winter Storms #4 & #5

Winter Storm #4 offered snow flurries, which melted, and a little bit of rain. It was gone quickly and we had days of bright sun and below freezing nights which gave us Hoarfrost and black ice. Good times!

After several days of sunny weather, Winter Storm #5 came a couple days ago. It began with snow flurries, then turned to rain. Sometimes brief, sometimes light, sometimes hard. Right now I've got strong winds gusting to 50 mph or so and surges of heavy rain. Allegedly there's snow flurries somewhere but not that I've seen. The wind sometimes gusts to 60 mph and the trees are really bucking around out there, with huge drops of rain coming in at 45 degree angles. I have to say: I'm glad I'm not living in a tent.

Btw, they really don't. Even though Paint Your Wagon is technically set in Nevada City, which is JUST over the hill from me, about 5 miles away. They run the musical every other year at the playhouse on Broad Street.

I think if I was out and about and I got stuck on some back road or my car broke down and I had to walk out I'd want some basic supplies with me. A poncho, waterproofed properly, yellow or bright orange so I'm visible in low light. A fleece pullover, for warmth. A water bottle or two. A knapsack to carry them in. A hand-wound weather radio. I don't have one of those but it's on my list. A couple of energy bars to eat, in case you have to walk. It takes calories to do that. A pocket knife. Those are so useful in the real world beyond the cities. And a cellphone, switched off so it doesn't drain the battery. I often take a camera when I go into the boonies because you sometimes find cool things to take pictures of. And a small first aid kit with tweezers for splinters and some bandaids. Don't overdo it. Just a few things is enough. I've seen people turn their emergency kits into full backpacks, which just adds to the weight they're driving around with and more things to worry about replacing when they expire, which normally gets discovered when you actually need them. Some antibiotic ointments turn into poison past their expiration dates, you know. Others cause allergic reactions for 80% of the population, making them rather useless. I'm one of those 80%, too. The Prepper community tends to obsess about preparing for everything, and I mean everything. Mayan Apocalypse. Asteroid Impact. Supervolcano eruption. Alien invasion. Civil War. Totalitarian govt. Chinese invasion. Mexican invasion (oops!). Superstorm, hurricane, ice storm, flood, fire, landslide, power outage, running out of gas, flat tire, sudden appendicitis. You name it, they've got a prep for it. They often take this too far, mostly out of fear of all the changes we're undergoing as a society, and how people behave compared to how they behaved 20 years ago. All those spoiled children raised more spoiled children and they're surprised the world is a mess? Duh.

So the wind blows and the power is still on and I'm watching episodes of Doc Martin and having a good laugh. That poor poor man. Its like being trapped on Gilligan's Island.

Only it's Cornwall. The coast near where I grew up was like that: cliffs and greenery above a roiling heavy sea. The roads back and forth are narrow and erode in heavy storms so they sometimes close. Highway 1 north of Jenner closed again. Its a steep slide area and the water is deep there, the cliffs high and the road falls away, often. It can't be helped.

North of those cliffs is Fort Ross, the Southernmost Russian fur trading colony. They thought the indians or the Spanish would attack so they had wooden palisades and cannons to protect themselves. Nothing ever happened, but interest in hats made from sea otters waned and the money in the fort dried up. Can you imagine harvesting otters, skinning them, drying their pelts in that wet place, then putting them on a ship headed NORTH to Alaska, then across the Bering Strait, then all the way across Siberia BACK to Moscow, then carried up to St. Petersburg or down to the Black Sea, then off to Paris so it could be turned into a hat and sold to a gentleman? Ridiculous. That's rough terrain around 3/4ths of the world. Of course it didn't last. Neither side knew about the Gold, which was discovered later. Both are kicking themselves over that one. I just laugh.