It’s mid-December and winter has finally smacked us dead on!

Such balmy temperatures we were having up until yesterday afternoon.  Word on the street was things were about to change.  Indeed they did, and with a big bang as well!  A huge arctic weather front moved swiftly into Washington state pushing that warm weather we were having forcefully out of the way.  By force I mean the gusts of wind we were having blew things around everywhere, including the trees.  My first instinct was to run out to the pastures to look at the woodpecker trees that had been pecked at all summer so that they were almost teetering on toothpicks.  Armed with my camera, I was filming gust after gust roar through, bending and testing the remaining fortitude of those trees.  They weren’t budging!  Well, just as I gave up and was walking back, another huge gust blew through and all at once those trees along with 3-4 others came crashing down.  Luckily, the winds blew these trees away from the pasture fencing!For a moment it felt like the monster from the TV series "Lost"  was throwing a temper tantrum.  Too late though for the video clip, dang it!  I can only bring the before and after shots for you along with what the next morning looked like after the snows. 

This was a incredible showing of nature and it left us with a power outage from midnight until 8am.  Our good ol’ PUD workers got everything restored in time for breakfast this morning.  Good job guys!

Still, the worst is yet to come!  They are predicting that after the snow stops falling on Sunday, everything will clear out making for crystal clear star gazing.  That means cold, cold, and more cold!  As a matter of fact the predictions are for the "coldest temperatures on record since 1990"!  For us here in the mountains that translates into 12 degrees for a low a night and 26 degrees for a high during the day!

So, winter is here!   The driveways are already plowed.   Time to get out the flying saucer and go sledding down the pasture hills!  Whoooooo-hooooooo!!!!!!

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