Weird Winter Weather

It's been awhile since I felt compelled to post here. Probably because the last few months have been pretty much routine, which I guess means we're settling into routines as we enter our 6th year here in the woods on the side of our mountain in Montana. I know I "promised" a post about dealing with the wildfire threat, evacuations, etc., but I just can't seem to want to sit down and focus on gathering the photos together and writing about them. It was frightening, sort of surreal, and, let's face it, damn inconvenient. THAT part of 2017 was anything but routine. Here's hoping it stays anything-but-routine.

It seemed to take a long time for the snow to come and stay. A couple times we got some inches, then a week or so later it would be gone. Then we also had some freezing fog which wasn't too bad for road conditions that we noticed, but was very pretty to look at for a few days.

We learned a new word!
Pogonip: a meteorlogical term used to describe the uncommon occurrence of frozen fog. It was coined by Native Americans to describe the frozen fogs of fine ice needles that occur in the mountain valleys of the western US in December. 

December 24-25 brought us up to a good foot of snow in some places. It was very pretty and also pretty powdery, so not that challenging to plow and shovel.

The first week of January decided to warm up: rain, freezing rain, sleet, melt-and-refreeze, wintry mix, you name it. If my Facebook feed is any indication, I'm about the only one I know who wants it to stay below freezing! Like, until sometime in March or April. Snow is one thing, but ice is a whole other hassle. A dangerous, dangerous hassle.

Plus, you know, we need that snow pack for water next fire season.

What I Did on Summer "Vacation": The Good, Part I

Where did the month of August go? It's Complicated.

July was all about our Balcony Upgrade. And August was supposed to be about our fun trip to Europe followed by a some long-awaited visitors. But instead it was followed with a trial by fire and smoke, i.e. the Lolo Peak Fire getting all up in our neighborhood business. More about that later; here I'm going to talk about the first leg of our fun trip!

Angry Robot Books, who published Dr Potter's Medicine Show and The Trials of Solomon Parker, is a Sci-fi/Fantasy publisher so he's been a attending WorldCon since 2015. The first year it was in Spokane, Washington (and he hadn't signed with AR yet), the second year it was in Kansas City, Kansas. I didn't tag along to those. This year it was in Helsinki, Finland! So, yeah, you bet I went along!

I think this was my first time on the new PDX carpet! 

Hold that thought, because we decided to take advantage of that deal where you can fly Icelandic Airlines through Reykjavik and layover for up to 7 days without additional fees and taxes. So we flew from Missoula to Portland, then the next day Portland to Reykjavik, arriving at about 6:00 AM.

I am not sure we ever had darkness outside the window on our red-eye to Iceland.

We've arrived! Such a striking landscape! 

Then we spent two whole days and two nights in Iceland. The first day we spend exploring Reykjavik while waiting for our AirBnB check-in at 2:00 PM. We chilled for a bit, probably took a nap, then went out again for dinner and more poking around. It turns out that our place was right by the city center so we walked from there.

Reykjavik is known for public murals.

From the Icelandic Phallological Museum! Good times.

We ran into our old pal, Bigfoot, at the Hallgrimskirkja. Guess he was checking out the statue of Leif Eriksson, too.

Not sure who this lumpy lady was, but she was up for a selfie.

And again at the Harpa concert hall! I wonder if he came on one of the tourist busses?

Sooooo windy there along the sea. Still we took the requisite shot at the Sun Voyager sculpture.

At the Iceland Punk Museum, housed in a defunct underground toilet. It was GREAT.

No one is more punk rock than Bigfoot.

Out the window of our AirBnB at 23:00!

We ate some great food! We had some really not great drinks! Everything cost a h*ckin' ton of money! A hamburger from just about anywhere was about $25.

The next day we took our rental car for a drive along part of the Golden Circle. The landscape is strikingly harsh in its beauty. You definitely feel like you can see the tectonics of it all - it's viscerally magical in its stark contrasts.

Views from the passenger side.

First stop!

I think if you click on this panorama it you can see a bigger version.

Summer residence of the Prime Minister in the park. Pretty humble, quite charming form the outside. Has a chapel and more interestingly, a graveyard.

Spotted on the way out in the parking lot! We saw several similar tourist vans with different humorous sayings.

We got a farm-to-table lunch experience at FarmHotel Efstidalur where it wasn't nearly so awkward to view the cows while eating a burger as you might think. They also have house made ice cream, but we didn't have any.

Next stop, Geysir where they have, you guessed it, Geysers.

Lots of tourists, of course, including Bigfoot.

The steamy areas are from geysers and the run off from them. 

A few times an hour the gesyer goes off and people gather all around behind a short barrier waiting for it. It doesn't shoot as high or "spouty" as Old Faithful, so we were pretty close.

For some reason Bigfoot was looking the other way when it went off. Shoot.

Our last stop was at Gullfoss waterfall. It kind of sneaks up on you and isn't really visible until you're right up the barrier. I was surprised by it's volume.
I think if you click on this panorama it might get bigger.

Like almost the entire world, we didn't know any Icelandic. We learned "thank you" and "cheers." We were very lucky that pretty much every Icelanders' second/third/whatever language is English. Did we feel like Ugly American Jerkfaces? Yes we did. Do Icelanders expect anyone to speak Icelandic? I didn't seem so. In fact, we definitely heard other travelers whose first language was definitely not English, use it to order food, ask directions, etc. Actually, we couldn't even mispronounce street names to each other in ways that at least we could communicate directions among our party of two. The GPS lady in the car was no help at all.

We got up around 4:30 to catch our 7:00a flight. I spotted this F&F sign on the highway to the airport. Don't know what it is!

One more night in Reykjavik with more delicious food and this time some amazing cocktails, then a VERY EARLY flight to Helsinki. Eric has all the foodie/boozy pics, so you'll just have to trust me!

It's Always Something Major. Appliances, That Is

Oh! Yeah! Back at the beginning of the we had a bit of a kerfuffle with the kitchen-related major appliances. First, we lost function in one of the burners on the electric range that came with the house. The large, front one of course. We didn't replace it with the kitchen remodel I did last year, because Eric really wants to switch to a gas range, but there is no gas or propane here, so that means getting a tank, trenching, putting a hole in the foundation, etc. So you know, reallllly expensive. It seems counter productive to replace it with an electric one with the plan to hopefully go gas (well, dual-fuel, actually) in a few years.

That burner with the espresso maker on it, right there? Yeah, that one. 

Within a few days we noticed that the GIANT chest freezer in the mudroom that came with the place failed. CUSS! We got to it before much has really thawed, but when we were going to put stuff in the small freezer in the new "extra" fridge - also in the mudroom - we realized it stopped working, because it just got too cold for too long in the mudroom. Even though that fridge is "garage ready," apparently that is just for garages located in places that don't get below freezing for very long. Or for heated garages, because people who can put money into heating their garages throughout the winter usually wants a utility-grade, small, plain-white fridge? Sigh.

Meat and frequently used things went into the kitchen freezer which is also getting used for "daily" stuff like making ice and freezing "cubes" of canned dog food for Delia's dinner. What?

After The Big Thaw, the mudroom fridge's freezerr got some produce and more rarely used things. And yes, we buy butter at Cost and freeze it. So what? Like we're ever going to NOT use butter? Nonsense.

Well, the new fridge was still under warranty so I was hoping to get someone out to get it going and while they were here - with the manufacturer paying for the service all - they could look at the others. HOWEVER, the authorized dealers, whose numbers I got from the manufacturer, either don't come down here from Missoula for that particular manufacturer's warranty work (doesn't pay enough) OR don't come up our road when there's been 3' of snow recently.

Not very classy, but throwing away perfectly good food isn't classy at all.

I think the road is ready for us to get a service call, but I am not. I got really sick with a flu while on the DPMS World Tour (of the Pacific Northwest) and the house is a bit of a wreck post trip, etc. Maybe next week if the road stays clear? I have a feeling that the chest freezer is done and I have hope that a cockamamie plan* I have hatched will keep the new fridge going during the sub-freezing temps going forward. I'll run it by the repair guy when he's here. Meanwhile, the melting means that the ice-chests-buried-in-snow-on-the-deck-solution ended and we lost some garden and store-bought veg. Grrrr.

*If this plan works, you know I will boast about share it here!

Not Dr Potter's Medicine Show - Life at the VME

The last few months' posts have been mostly about the publication of Eric's debut novel and that is because that's mostly what's been going on around here that's at all interesting. Otherwise, life on the VME has been about how it's snowing, how we're going to have to rethink where we* plow and where we put the snow we've plowed, how we're going to keep the melting snow out of the shop which is a bit below grade, etc. This is general winter stuff, that is just a bit more intense this year because we got so much snow in December and and then more snow in January.

Plowing of the road created a bit of a berm at the bottom of the driveway and eventually even Eric's plowing of the driveway won't take it down. But two different snow shovels, a pick ax, and an hour or so will. 

Luckily, Delia has been enjoying fetch despite the snow...

... and enjoying hassling the squirrels and chipmunks under the snow!

And then we went on the DPMS World Tour (of the Pacific Northwest) and it warmed up while we were away which made the driveway a challenge for our house-and dog-sitter, Carrie. But by the time we got home, much of the road was down to exposed dirt! And the driveway was just a couple days away from its annual Death Luge Ice Driveway (DLID) stage.

And then a couple days after that, lots of exposed dirt! Which is certainly ugly, but much nicer for driving than the DLID.

Now this week has been a daily rotation of rain, snow, melt and rain, snow, melt... a potential mess and a real drag for fetching firewood and playing fetch. But at least I'm able to get up and down the driveway without chaining up Bert every time. At least for now.

I couldn't capture it, but it was pouring down rain when I took this. Not that sissy Montana rain, but real cats n' dogs style rain and for a good while, too.

I guess this big melty, rainy mess is not only a drag for us, but also for denning bears. Uh oh!



* And by "we," I mean "Eric" when it comes to plowing.