The Amazing Salmon

Whoa two in a row!  Honestly, I'm just killing time waiting for Darrington schools to report so I can know whether or not to set the alarm when I go back to bed.  I think the school should be closed, but they were open yesterday despite the 18 inches of snow and all of the crashes and jack-knifes out here on the highway.  Not exactly safe bussing conditions to me, but who cares about safety when you're trying to boast about staying on budget, right?

After going through two large snowstorms that have turned to ice within 2 years time, I can definitely say that when the Hermit eventually goes to Scandinavia to trace his roots when we are older, I will be hanging out in South Germany or France while he visits Ice world.  Not a fan of perma-snow.  At least this one hit us in February and not December so it will only be a week or two of white instead of months.  I just hope our fruit trees are okay, since the pear blossoms indicated it was time to prune them to stumpiness on the 13th.  Maybe it snowed enough to insulate them before the temp dropped into the teens?

I did run across some very interesting fish facts last night while researching one of my term papers, and I would love to share them with you.  First amazing fish fact - juvenile salmon are territorial, including a dominant individual, and that fish is much larger than the rest because it is an aggressive glutton.  Second amazing fish fact - salmonids can exhibit hyperactivity.  Of course this usually gets them noticed and eaten by larger fish, but ADHD in fish seems kind of funny to me.  And the third and most amazing fish fact (to me at least) - fish can cough.  I'm not sure how it sounds or what it looks like, but according to fish scientists, they cough.  Now I hope you all feel a little smarter knowing these trivial salmonid facts.  Time to recheck the school report.

Update:  School is closed.  Enough parents must have complained yesterday - good job Logger moms.  Trying to stay positive about Ice world - I caught air in a tobogon yesterday, and today it gave me a  chance to sleep in for once.  Good night world.

Forecast for Fun

Before I begin, I need to get something off of my chest that has been bugging me for several weeks - a janitor is not an environmental technician, a garbage collector is not a sanitation engineer, and a librarian is not a scientist.  This is why - unless you took classes and tested for a license, you are not a technician of any kind.  If you do not use AutoCAD or CATIA every day, you are not an engineer of any kind, and if you do not work in a lab, in a clinic or in the field, or study results from a lab, clinic or the field, you are not a scientist.  NOW QUIT CLOGGING UP THE SCIENCE JOB BOARDS WITH YOUR BOGUS TERMINOLOGY!!!!

Ok, with that said, it's time to brag about the awesome snow going on here.  We have 16 inches so far, and plan to hit our 40 foot sledding hill on and off throughout the day.  Perhaps construction of a snow man will happen as well.  The plan is to research one paper, then play.  I think that's a good way to break up the monotony and prevent cabin fever.  If you have a four wheel drive vehicle, you may want to check out Oso today as the eagles are hanging out waiting for salmon above the river.  It's a beautiful sight.  However, if you don't have 4 wheel drive, don't go past Skaglund's Hill.  I'm not sure if you can get past it anyway, as there was a jack-knifed 16 wheeler blocking both lanes last I heard.

The weather forecast calls for snow all day and night, with temps diving tonight into the teens.  Something tells me we won't be planning rain gardens in Gleneagle tomorrow.  Unfortunately by Monday, a pineapple express storm is supposed to move in and shoot snow levels way up with a ton of rain to go with it.  Can you say flooding?

Robots, Snow and You Can't Fool Me

I can feel a break coming...so close...gonna make it. I have just one paper left to write, a 3 page, single spaced reflection paper on our projects and teamwork in Engineering. We ended up losing the robot sumo contest, but we found out that one group cheated between rounds, and a rule change half-way through would have given us more wins. They decided that just one wheel off the arena counts as a loss half-way through the contest and that you couldn't win if your robot drove off the arena after pushing off the opponent, so we should have had another two wins. Oh well, it was fun.

I will upload the killer movie I made for our presentation to YouTube on Thursday, since I promised all the boys in the class I would. I knew with nothing but guys in the class that Ozzy's Crazy Train was the perfect track for the movie. We ended up with a perfect score on the presentation, so I'll take the A+ over the bragging rights any day!

I recieved an email from the Environmental Science program at WWU's Huxley College, asking me to go ahead and send in my Huxley application. That must mean my Western application is close to approval. Sweet!

Prospects for my garden are looking bleak, however. I usually have a grand garden every summer, but we have to move it this year to an area that still needs stump removal. We've seen parts of our lawn for a few hours, but it never fails to snow again once it almost melts. I think 3 months of snow on the ground is quite enough. We have had a lot of family nights inside playing Rock Band, Mariokart, and even Texas Hold 'Em.

On the work front, we had 3 stolen blanks for Oxycodone brought in last week. It started on Sunday when Dr. London and I recieved some DUR's from the gal's insurance alerting us to her large amount of recent narcotic purchases, but the lady was really insistant that we didn't get ahold of her I.D. We found out from the doctor's office the next day that she had stolen a narcotic pad from one of their desks. So she was not arrested, but didn't get any drugs from us and she was flagged county-wide. It really set a grumpy mood for my week at work.

On Friday, Dr. Alix and I helped bust two members of a local OxyContin ring, and luckilly the owner of the pharmacy showed up while we were waiting for the cops, because it was all women working again. Those situations usually don't scare me, but Dr. Alix is a newbee and so were the clerks I was working with, and the suspects were both large men. I didn't want to give anything away to the forgers, but I did try to keep the girls behind the second counter until the police showed up. Just 3 more years of dealing with these Oxy morons and then I'm on to other places.

Thursday...YouTube...Robots

Christmas Fun

Did Santa bring everyone what they wanted? I know I got a killer pair of Mossy Oak dual mitten/glove waterproof work gloves with 40 below Thinsulate lining - and yes, they're camouflage, so what? We had a great get-together with my stepfamily last night, since they, too live in Arlington, and we could actually barrell through the frozen, lumpy roads. We freally missed my step-sister and her kids, though. Girl, you need to find a 4WD, just kidding.

Today, aside from presents, we picked up my step-son, played Rock Band, and I rolled my sled 3 times, and caught air once, but not on purpose. The coolest thing happened when we were sledding, though.

You know you and your significant other are soulmates when you find you have the same weird obsessions, you know? Like, I'm obsessed with frogs and birds he's obsessed with eagles and lizards. Anyway, we've watched 4 bald eagles soar really low across our back yard today, and one experience I'll never forget. The hubby went down the sled hill and stoped dead at the bottom of the hill. Right then, a bald eagle went right over my head at the top of the hill and landed in the tree right above him. The eagle proceeded to check him out with both eyes, and sat majestically on top of the fir tree trying to figure out what we were doing. He eventually flew off, but it was soooo cool!

Anyway, here's some more snow pictures, but unfortunately none of the eagle. We ended up with 3&1/2 feet total!

The view from the front walkway of our roof.

The Twinkie is buried!

What once was my orchard - the front twig is actually a pear tree!

The icicles off the back roof!

And what was once a cute, little 3&1/2 foot fence is nothing more than a line of lumpy snow between us and the neighbors!

No Need to Dream of a White Christmas

Another 5 inches and more on the way today and tomorrow. Our Christmas Eve plans got postponed due to the current round of snow, and the fact that we don't want to chain up just to get to dinner. We will have to wait a while for presents from the hubby's family (my family gives love - we know it's all good!), but at least we (and the Escape) will be safe. My mother-in-law was sweet enough to hold another dinner for us next weekend, so hopefully the warming trend that is supposed to start on Friday will hold out all next week.

Right now, we are trying to get the ATV started so we can do donuts and drag the innertube in the snow. The new neighbors have a snowmobile - I will totally have to check that out, too! I LOVE motor toys!! Sledding is also in the plans, since we have SOOOOOOO much snow, nothing but time, and a kick-ass 35 foot drop in our back yard. Half our Christmas might be cancelled, and we might be snowed in, but it's going to be A LOT of fun! Merry Christmas everyone!

The Most I've Seen in 20 Years...Literally

When I was ten, we had a HUGE snow storm in Maryland. I think we ended up with almost 3 feet of snow that year, and despite hating the cold, I had A LOT of fun in it. We're now over 2 feet and it just started coming down in buckets again. The only creature that seems to be enjoying it is Bear Bear the husky. The other dogs are no where to be seen since we put them out, and we are hold up inside with the cats and the heat.

I think we have officially given up on the satellite dish, so movie day it is. Now would be a good time to ground some Pete's Coffee Italian Roast and catch up on movies and Christmas cards. We were going to try and make it into work today, but just watched a Suburban slide across the highway. It was going really slow, too. Then I saw the guy turn around and head back into Darrington. Snow Day! I can't wait until it clears up and I can take pictures of the mountains!

Here's some pictures of last night and some from this morning - remember, we shoveled all day yesterday, and I completely cleared both cars of snow last night. Enjoy:

Last night while cleaning off the vehicles and finally warm and exhausted on my sheep wools.

The two feet we woke up to, and my wasted efforts.

And the poor dog who lost his bottom step.

Snow Update

Snow update - we now have eleven inches. We're supposed to get four more tonight and another two inches tomorrow. Then it's supposed to dip back down into the single digits (it was 8 on Monday night) until it snows again Saturday. Here's some more snow pics: