28-29 August: a storm gives us four days off

Friday, 28 August 2015

We had had rain overnight and the rain barrels were full!

six out of eight barrels rainwater, a glorious sight

I got every bucket we could spare and all the watering cans and proceeded to dip water out till every barrel was empty and every bucket was sitting around full…even the green wheelie cart that Mary Beth gave me.  Allan said I was acting like a Beduoin, saving water like a desert dweller.  I was simply thrilled to splash around in it.  Even though I used a small bucket to pour water into the big ones, I felt pain the next day, mostly in my quadriceps, for some reason.

I also got my tub spray painted in dark green. The paint job earlier had been too light.

Today, Allan finished the big project of the summer by adding two arches to tie the whole front garden look together.

cardoon (which causes many passersby to say “Look, artichokes!”

before (Allan’s photo)

posts set (Allan’s photo)

crosspieces up (Allan’s photo)

That’s why the gate got painted dark green yesterday. (Allan’s photo)

done! The new arches balance the arbour on the other side.

Thanks to Pam Fleming for the idea for adding the right side arbour.

The cardoons match! I’ll pretend that was planned.

At the end of the day, because we had had some rain, we decided we could have a campfire.  We had wanted to all summer but it had been too dry (even though there was no burn ban on small backyard fires).

the back garden from the fire area

Verbena bonariensis and Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’

view from my chair

the former danger tree garden

Allan makes fire.

Smokey joined us (Allan’s photo)

cider and sausages

We still have so much firewood because of not being able to have summer fires (seemed too dangerous).

from south of the fence (Allan’s photo; he had gone out there because a deer walked by.)

a bed of coals

a thorough dowsing

Have you noticed that blue flowers really glow at dusk? (Allan’s photos)

We took in the fragile outdoor tables ahead of the storm and I took down the plates that hang on the shed wall in summer, and was awfully glad I did.

Saturday, 29 August 2015

The storm arrived at 5 AM and got progressively fiercer.  The power went out for an hour or so.  (Friends up north of Seattle had their power out for three days!)

a barrel full again, and leaves blown into my water hoard

At about 11 AM, I went out to take a few photos.  Allan saw me carrying a tray in which I was determined to catch a little more water overflowing from the rain barrels.

a water hoarder

full again

apples blown off the tree

The trees were whipping in the wind.

small leafy branches blown to the north

Nora’s lawn strewn with leaves

leaves over the house and into the driveway

Ilwaco made the Seattle news.

The wind got up to over 70 mph on the Astoria-Megler bridge.  I think it is unheard of to have a storm this powerful here in summer.

In the afternoon, when the wind died down from 56 mph (!), we went to Time Enough Books.

The post office garden is all blown about.

a snowplow heading east to push debris off the road.

at the Ilwaco boatyard (where the garden is blown sideways, too).

Even though the Saturday Market had been cancelled, OleBob’s Café was bustling.

storm flags by the port office

I had been waiting to buy “X” by Sue Grafton on this day when bookstore owner Karla was donated 10% of her profits to the Ilwaco Community Park fund.

My good friend Scout was happy to see me.

Karla seeking money for the park fund.

view from Time Enough Books, very high tide

Scout

Browsers had flocked to the bookstore as a refuge from the stormy day.  Earlier, Karla had sold books by lantern light during the power outage.

bustling

We drove to the south parking lot to look at the river.

east side of the marina

The Lady Washington was docked here, but certainly not giving rides today.

hunkered down

wind from the south

at the entry to the marina

Stipa tenuissima sails through a storm.

Our Kathleen came over after the wind lessened and we had tea and Allan’s apple cake.  I meant to start Sue Grafton’s X afterwards but decided to work on blog catch-up instead as I had not even written about The Winterlings concert yet.

We got enough torrential rain in the late afternoon that the barrels would have completely filled again were they not already full.  It was wonderful to hear it.  You can see a video from our front porch here.

From our local paper, the following Wednesday:

Next: two more days off, because we don’t have to water!

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12 December 2007 — a storm known as The Monster

Finally the storm came, and all the skeptics must have been sorry that they did not stock up ahead of time.  It lasted three long days of winds up to 140 up in the hills and 85 mph whipping through the towns. Downtown Astoria’s businesses lost windows, sucked out by the vacuum of the wind, and all over Northwest Oregon and our Peninsula, groves of trees splintered and toppled, roofs and siding blew off, and power went out for four to seven days.  In our case, four was bad enough.  I especially pined for the internet.  Until the storm finally ceased and the tiresome roaring winds died down, it was too dangerous to go out and check on the damage.  We were in a land of mystery, cut off from the outside world with neither landline nor cell telephone service and all the roads in and out blocked by fallen trees.  KMUN radio station in Astoria kept broadcasting with a generator but had no news of our side of the river because no one could cross the bridge.  I read the new Dick Francis by a good lantern flashlight and grimly waited it out, expecting one of the tall trees that lean over our house to fall on us at any moment.

When finally we emerged, the damage was impressive.   I felt kind of vulture-like taking photos of people’s woeful upended fences and trees.  Our friend J9 and Jill had lived in New Orleans and told us they had found it worse than southern hurricanes, as it lasted for such a long time.

trees down at Seaview Solstice house

At Solstice House, three large trees came down perfectly lined up to miss the house and the fence.

At Sea Nest, the driftwood temple which my former partner, Robert, built some years ago had imploded inward, and at the Tinker House near Jo’s garden, the glass of the patio shelter shattered.  (Allan repaired the temple but was not able to re-incorporate all the pieces because of breakage and splintering.)

by Jo’s garden

Jo’s fence and garden took a beating, and broken styrofoam bits had been swirled out a neighbour’s storage shed and scattered everywhere like snowdrifts.  Other neighbours will have some sawing to do because of a tree down over their stairway.

Along Sandridge Road on the Willapa Bay side of the Peninsula, entire groves of trees were mangled and splintered into heaps.  Along all the roads we saw this, but nowhere as dramatically as around 220th and Sandridge.

trees down along Sandridge Road

We visited all of our gardens, and other than the temple at Seanest found little heartbreaking damage.  Two clients and friends had chain link fences yanked high into the air by massive fallen tree rootballs.  Laurie’s house was deserted, the battery backup sadly bleating while the she and her dogs and horses were all gone to more friendly climes, perhaps.  [Later she told me they had loaded the horses up and driven to somewhere safer …I seem to recall she might have taken the horses to The Red Barn …when she saw that the sky was a strange colour, almost orange, and truly believed the storm would be serious.]  Denny at KBC was forlorn and lonely because Mary was stranded up in Silverdale and could not drive back for three days.,,nor could he get any word to her that the cabins had not blown away.  We found him   (he who had been skeptical) ruefully burning downed timber.  The fish he had caught in Alaska in early summer had thawed in the power outage.   Later we learned Seattle news had had very little coverage of the storm, so Mary was unable to get much news.  Our friend J9 had a tree down on a power line, and she and Jill were without power for days longer than we were.  Allan, having cleverly filled the gas tank the day before, had enough fuel to motor all over the Pensinsula till the pumps were working again, so rather than begin our staycation as planned, we spent the next week picking up debris and propping the plants back upright again. I am grateful for Allan’s childhood camping skills which enabled us to have hot coffee and warm meals! I would have been chewing raw coffee beans. Which reminds me, you cannot grind coffee beans without electricity, so remember to grind them the night before the storm.  Fortunately, when the local store opened with a generator we were able to get some ground beans (and more chocolate).  By the second day, the store was well picked over and had one loaf of bread on the shelf and was giving away free melted ice cream.  Allan took three quarts and, I believe, managed to eat two of them!

Update, 2015: For more photos of storm damage, Google “Great Coastal Gale”.  A particularly dramatic story is about the Uppertown Net Loft art studio in Astoria.  Another good article covering the storm is in the local paper, the Chinook Observer. A few days after the storm, we drove through the Surf Pines beach-side neighbourhood near Gearhart, Oregon.  Locals were now calling it Surf Pine because of all the trees down.  The skyline of Astoria changed as groves of trees on the ridge over town had been felled by the storm.

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