Eight days ago, last Tuesday, it started to snow. By Thursday afternoon we had 10 inches of snow on the ground, with temperatures dipping down to 24 degrees at night and hovering around 32 during the day. Those first couple days and nights, tree limbs and whole trees were snapping and coming down. Every minute or so it sounded like a gunshot going off. Fortunately, our power never went out, thanks in part to underground utilities on Yachats River Road. It was beautiful, at times spooky, and occasionally fun. It was also sad to see our beloved big leaf maple tree we see from our living room lose it's biggest remaining trunk.
The following pictures don't need much explanation, so I'll post most of them without captions. The storms continue today with a wintry mix of snow, sleet, rain, and hail. Last week we were congratulating ourselves for cleaning up the trails, removing fallen wood and leaning branches. Now there is a huge amount of tree debris to clean up. It will be a busy spring.
Wednesday morning, Feb. 27.
Our big leaf maple lost its biggest trunk. Daisy, Yummy, and I heard it come down Wednesday evening.
The river is loaded with downed trees, and bent over branches. That should be good for fish habitat.
There's only one big trunk left on the maple.
Good thing I shoveled the driveway on Thursday. The snow froze solid after a little thawing soon after. We still have yet to drive out of our driveway.
Time to dust off the snowshoes...
...and head up the 5300.
Snow shoeing up the 5300 had its obstacles.
We also took Daisy up Bear Scratch.
We took a walk a couple miles down the road on Saturday.
A herd of elk was looking for food. The bull has just one antler left.
I unscrewed a yardwaste container lid, which made a pretty good sled.
The final run.
We had a little drama this morning. The school bus normally turns around in the fire dept. parking lot across the street from us, but the driver couldn't make it up the unplowed driveway and accidentally backed off the road onto our property. Cars were blocked in both directions. There were three kids on board.
Here I am offering no advice.
The fire department emergency vehicle and volunteer from town came to the rescue, hooked his winch up to the bus, and pulled it out.
I know this weather is commonplace to much of the country, but for coastal Oregon, this was more like a ten year event.
5 comments:
Great pics! Why are your car hoods propped open?
Exciting times! That is a lot of snow you guys got. I am glad I got a good picture of the big leaf maple in its glory a couple weeks ago, I will put that on my blog soon. And you are very clever unscrewing your yardwaste bin lid for a sled! Sorry you have so much debris to clean up in the coming months...
Hi, Mike. Wood rats were tearing up our hoodliners, firewall insulation, and engine covers to build nests in the engine compartments, despite our setting traps. Propping the hoods up leaves open air above the rats, which they don't like. I think they feel vulnerable to predators, and colder as residual engine heat dissipates faster. It's a pain, but after almost a year of doing this, we haven't had a problem.
RE: “The following pictures don't need much explanation, so I'll post them without captions”: Thanks for the explanation about them pesky wood rats. So glad I’ve never had to deal with them! Now, if I could only stymie the squirrels 🐿️ in our macadamia nut tree down here in Vista!
Holy cow, what an entertaining blog post! It makes Yachats look like a really happening place. Mike beat me to it on the question about the propped up car hoods. Interesting.
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