3/52 - Visit from Grandma Lee

We've had a glorious month of perfect, snowy weather. But this week, it decided to rain. A lot. After several dry winters (and the resulting summer fires), we can't complain about the rain too much. But it is sad to see the snowpack beginning to disappear, while simultaneously being uninspired to play in the snow in the rain. We'd much rather have the snow.

While I was in NJ, about 7" of new snow arrived in Trout Lake. Unfortunately, since I wasn't around to clear it before the rains came, the driveway is now impassible. It will likely stay that way until it either dries out enough to not jam in the PTO snowblower, or it gets cold enough to freeze solid again. So when mom and I arrived in Trout Lake with our luggage, we had to trudge up the driveway through several inches of wet snow. Welcome to winter in the country, mom!

During her visit, the weather kept us inside most of the time. We played a few games, including Boggle. Anders has a great time and occasionally even finds a few words that we don't! When the precipitation finally broke, we managed to convince mom to go on a snowshoe walk with us through our property.

Way to go, mom! Thanks for the visit!

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This week, Anders and two of his classmates were moved to the next higher grade for reading. They are all really enjoying the challenge of 2nd grade reading but we are having to coach Anders a bit on expected answers versus accurate answers.

Apparently, the 2nd graders don't reliably turn in their homework. On particularly bad days, those who completed the assignments and turned them in receive prizes. Anders enjoys that, too!

Anders's plastic snake and lizard collection, courtesy of 2nd grade

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders

49/52 - Wild Trout Lake

This past week, Trout Lake showed its wild side.

Last weekend, we got a couple inches of snow to coat the ground. But then it got a little warmer, and the falling snow turned to rain. A lot of rain. For the next several days, it poured continually. This is a bad combination. The rain quickly melted much of the snowpack that had developed on the mountains, and the combined deluge overflowed all of the local waterways. The worst came together on Tuesday night into Wednesday, when water flowed across the main road in Trout Lake, closing the school and rendering several places unreachable. Friends of ours woke up Wednesday morning to find themselves surrounded by water: their driveway and ground floor garage were already flooded, and the water was only a few inches from entering their slightly elevated first floor. They moved what they could to the second floor and were evacuated later that day by Search and Rescue.

This USGS White Salmon River discharge chart speaks for itself.

Near the peak of the flow on Wednesday, we walked down to the river. The water was as high as I think we've ever seen it, to the point where we had a hard time recognizing where we were along the river.

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(video 1.5x speed)

Somewhere underneath all of that water is our sandy beach and several waterfalls, including Sidewinder/Kettle Falls. With this much water, it's easy to see why all of the waterways in town overflowed.

By Friday, the rain had largely abated, allowing much of the water to recede. We took advantage of a break to take another walk to the river on Sunday.

By Sunday, the river was back to a normal high level for this time of year. The difference between Wednesday and Sunday was striking. For reference, here is the water level at a bridge near the southernmost river section of our property.

Wednesday at peak flow / Sunday at normal "high"

Corinne and Anders stood at Wednesday's waterline, which was easily identifiable by the clean line of Ponderosa pine needles that were swept up.

Here is Anders standing next to a cluster of severed roots that were swept up by the currents and pressed into a ball against this tree.

Despite having the river as one of its property boundaries, we are very thankful that our property is not in a floodplain. It is incredible to see such a dramatic change in such a short period of time, and we are able to be an observer of the high waters without worrying!

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Trout Lake exerted its wildness in other ways this week as well. We've had a covey of quail (yes, I looked it up) around the house. They wander around the driveway until they notice us, then fly up into the trees.

When we first moved to Trout Lake, we saw turkey tracks all over the property. But we hadn't seen any in a long time until this past week.

Now we have a confirmed sighting of 13 turkeys! The rafter (group of turkeys - yes, I looked that up, too) has been wandering all around our place for several days now.

But the most unexpected exhibit was one that happened too quickly for a photo opportunity. On Thursday morning, I noticed some movement out our Great Room window and discovered a herd of Elk booking single-file through our yard into our forest! We've had elk come through our property before, but this is only the second time that we've witnessed it.

Mother Nature abounds!

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders

35/52 - Last Week Before School

This was the last full week before Anders starts school again. Summer can't be over already, can it?

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Corinne and Anders took the Amtrak train to Portland for a visit to OMSI. Bingen has an Amtrak station, but it's not intended as a commuter train. There's only one train per day in each direction. Going east, you can actually take the Empire Builder line from Bingen all the way to Chicago!

After I dropped the two of them off at the train station first thing in the morning, I received periodic updates on their travels.

Observation car!

At Union Station in Portland, the two transferred to a bus. Their combined cuteness - and out-of-town status - earned them free day passes from the driver.

Once at OMSI, the IMAX movie Walking With Dinosaurs was on the agenda.

When we visited the American Museum of Natural History in NYC earlier this summer, the Hayden planetarium was closed for renovations. So the OMSI Planetarium would have to do this summer.

There was only about a 5 hour window before they had to get back on the bus to catch the train heading West again.

But I think it was just enough time.

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Back in the Gorge, the 3 best friends had one last hurrah at the Hood River pool.

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For the last week it has been quite a bit colder, with one morning reaching down to 36°. We've even had several days of real rain! It feels like fall is already here. One of the upsides is that the Cascade Creek fire is now 80% contained, and all of that rain was actually snow at the higher elevations on Mt Adams. Such a pretty sight and a beautiful way to end the week.

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders

34/52 - Fire on the Mountain

While we were traveling over the past several weeks, the wildfire season at home kicked into high gear. Just 3 days after we left, a lightning strike started the Cougar Creek fire. The fire started just south and east of the mountain, and the hot weather and dry conditions enabled it to spread quickly. It has been burning for about three weeks now and is over 54,000 acres. While the fire area is only about 12 miles from our house, it does not pose a direct danger for us. But depending on the wind conditions, the heavy smoke can settle in the Trout Lake valley, creating unhealthy air quality. All of that smoke means that we are unable to leave our windows open day or night, eliminating our primary cooling mechanism during the hot summer days.

Here is some great recent imagery of the fire area. This is a composite of IR and EO images taken by the Landsat 8 imaging satellite. You can see the current fire locations and the large burned-out areas where the fire started.

The risk of new fires is still extremely high. The state has shut down all motorized operations in forested areas of Klickitat County, including our property. No chainsaws, trucks, tractors, weed whackers, etc. That also means that all commercial logging is shutdown. It is the first time these restrictions have been in place in over 20 years.

It was dark when we flew home from our trip, and we planned our seats so that we could see the fire from the window. (Thanks, Southwest!) There are lots of good resources online to track the latest fire info, all of which we monitored regularly on our travels.

Live photo of Mt Adams, updated every few minutes.

Mt Adams Cam Facebook page. People post the most interesting photos from Mt Adams TV. There are some really cool photos of the fire, northern lights, etc.

Cougar Creek Facebook page. Fire, fire fighter pics and videos, plus the latest official fire summary from InciWeb.

Cougar Creek Inciweb. The official page with detailed info if you want to geek out on it.

Here's a great evening photo from the Mt Adams Cam showing the fire lighting the lenticular clouds.

All of the smoke in the air does make for pretty skies, though.

There are lots of other fires burning now, many larger than Cougar Creek. Cooler weather and some much needed rain arrived this weekend, though it will take extended periods of rain, lower temperatures, and mild winds to get all of these fires under control. But hopefully we are nearing the end of this year's fire season.

- Mike, Corinne and Anders

26/52 - Lost Tooth, July 4th

Anders lost his third tooth this week, and it was a big one: right maxillary central incisor, aka top front tooth. This one was a long time coming. He first mentioned to us that it was loose about four months ago, back at the beginning of March. He was eating dinner on Tuesday when he noticed something funny in his mouth; by the time he had connected the dots, he had already swallowed it. He was pretty disappointed, but not disappointed enough to take us up on our offer to look for it when it... came out.

Once we explained that the tooth fairy doesn't actually need the physical tooth in order to make her appearance, he calmed down and wrote her a note.

Dear Tooth Fairy: I have swallowed my tooth eating noodles.

She didn't disappoint.

There's something about a kid missing front teeth that is timeless. I think he could convince anyone to do just about anything with this face.

And if the first face doesn't work, here's his "fierce" look.

Anders hasn't been too curious about the tooth fairy; in fact, he hasn't really even noticed the sparkles that she leaves on his face when she visits. But this time, Anders decided that "We should go to the non-fiction section of the library and check out a book about the tooth fairy." Good idea. I wonder if they have one?

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Anders has always enjoyed books. But now that he can read many of them on his own, he has taken it to a new level. He is participating in the library's summer reading program, keeping a log of all his time reading. On one night in particular, we had a hard time convincing him to come to the dinner table.

But Mom, I don't want to waste time eating dinner. I want to finish reading my book!

His kindergarten teacher would be so proud.

Aboard the library bookmobile.

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Summer has arrived early this year, and unfortunately so has the fire season. Mount Adams has its first wildfire of the season: the Horseshoe Fire. It was probably started by a thunderstorm in late June, but that hasn't been confirmed. It is still relatively small at only about 250 acres. But the 100° heat and remote location of the fire means that it may be a while before they can declare it contained.

Here's a time-lapse video of the smoke blowing over our house on the first day. Thankfully, high over our house.

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Whenever we hear a helicopter, we run outside to watch them fly over with their water buckets suspended beneath.

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Another quote from Anders, while eating outside at the Hood River Tacqueria this past week:

This is the most peaceful restaurant I've ever been in. No loud talking. No music. No TV.

Yep, he's our kid.

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Anders learned the word 'prosthetic' from a certain They Might Be Giants song, but of course he had many questions.

Anders: Is there such thing as a prosthetic forehead?
Corinne: I don't think so.
A: Is there such thing as a prosthetic toe?
C: Probably not.
A: How about a nose?
C: Maybe?
A: How about a prosthetic penis?
C: Yes.
A: What?!? Seriously?? There is really such thing as a prosthetic penis?
C: Yes.
A: Do you know anyone with a prosthetic penis?
C: No.
A: That's crazy.

We'd love to be there when he tries to explain this to one of his friends. I hope we don't get in trouble from other parents!

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Happy 4th of July! We spent the day enjoying two local parades, catching up with neighbors at a block party (for large values of 'block'), then capped it off with a fireworks display over the Columbia River.

Anders and BoBunny

Happy Birthday, America!

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders

46/52 - Winter Without a Furnace

With the temperatures dropping and winter approaching, we finally broke down and turned on our propane furnace in October. But within the hour, it started emitting some loud banging noises. Not good.

We hate our furnace. Every several years, it seems to have one problem or another, requiring expensive parts ordered from the east coast. The majority of the local heating service contractors don't seem to have much experience with this brand (Heatmaker), so either they can't figure out what is wrong or they have to make multiple trips - one for diagnosis and a second after replacement parts have arrived. This time, I was going to try to diagnose and fix it myself.

Over the next week, I disassembled various parts looking for the culprit. I figured that there probably aren't too many moving parts that would cause such a loud noise. First suspect: blower fan. I ordered a replacement, and a week later when it arrived I successfully replaced it. But the noise was still there. My second hypothesis was that something was banging around inside the combustion chamber, possibly some buildup on the heat exchangers. But when I started to disassemble the chamber and realized that I wouldn't have any confidence that all of the seams were sealed up properly, I decided it was time to call in a professional.

After a week and a half calling contractors and getting nowhere, I finally got one to come out and take a look. (What is with contractors in the Gorge? You should at least answer your phone or return phone calls. Sheesh.) After 2 hours exploring, the prognosis was not good. Sure enough, it was buildup on the heat exchanger coils, but on the INSIDE. He described it like kidney stones, rattling around in the pipe and obstructing the flow of water. With no good way to clean it out, it would need to be replaced. The cost of the replacement part? $2,000 for the part alone.

This was it. This was finally the end of this furnace. We would pump no more money into this monstrosity. But what now?

With winter still on its way, we decided to take a chance. We're going to wait until spring to research and design the replacement heating system. So for this winter, we will have no furnace. We would heat the house with our wood stove, supplemented by several electric heaters as needed. We have some wood seasoned and split, but we had planned for "ambiance fire" wood, not "heat the whole dang house" wood. So we will be buying more this year, at least once.

Other than during power outages, this is the first time we're attempting to heat the whole house solely with the wood stove. And it is only our work-at-home jobs that makes this feasible at all. We can start a fire in the morning and tend it all day to get the whole house warmed up. I don't think we would be attempting this if we had to drive to an office.

Coincidentally, the first snow arrived at about the same time as the furnace death knell.

Here's hoping for a mild winter! Oh, but still with lots of snow, of course. That's not too much to ask, it is?

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders

11/52 - Spring Games

What a difference a week makes! The snow is long gone with no signs of returning. Anders went on a walk and came back with "Seven signs of spring":

1. It's a sunny day
2. Robins were in the yard
3. Buds are on trees
4. Seed cones on the ground
5. You can see the grass
6. You can see the potholes on the road
7. Strawberry plants growing (I suspect that it was a weed)
8. No more snow!

I guess that's actually eight, isn't it.

Quote of the week from Anders, after watching the American Serengeti special:

Bison poop out their babies.

Thank you, National Geographic, for taking care of that whole sex education thing for us.

Out of the blue one day, Anders decided to design his own games! He just sat down with some paper and started drawing. All of the concepts and designs were done without any help, and even without our knowledge of what he was doing! We asked Anders for a description of each game, and here's what he told us.

The first one is called Ice Cream Cone. The driver in the car (at the upper right) wants some ice cream, so he has to drive around the maze to get to the orange ice cream truck.

I'll take mint, please.

The second one is called Car Smash and basically involves the monster truck jumping over the cars. (Given the name, I'm guessing that he is not always successful.)

The next one is called Gold Mine, and this is a hard one. The LEGO guy has to find all of the gold in 5 minutes. There is even gold hidden inside a rock. When the timer beeps, all of the gold has to be found. (The "timer" is the cone-shaped piece in the upper left.)

The last one is a car maze (KAR MAZ), complete with labels: Start (S), Finish (F), and a clue that says Broken (BLKN). I think this is the first instance of Anders spelling on his own.

Awesome. He's going to be a nerd like his parents!

- Mike, Corinne and Anders

10/52 - Last of Winter

We returned from Arizona just in time for a snow storm here in the Gorge. By Sunday afternoon we had over a foot of new snow on the ground - a welcome sight for us after a long dry winter spell.

This is probably the last opportunity to play in the snow!

We've been teaching Anders our phone numbers, since it's a good thing for kids to know. It has taken a bit of repetition, but he can now rattle off my cellphone number - including area code - without even thinking too hard. We are now working on adding Corinne's number to his repertoire. (Things were easier when we were kids: only one phone number, and it only had 7-digits!)

Of course, turn about is fair play. Now he wants to teach us his phone number, which I think he made up on the spot: 19638-256-4344. Feel free to call it; it appears to be an international number somewhere in Syria.

Quote of the week from Anders:

"Never go hiking on Venus. Because above it has poisonous clouds."

One of the great things about preschool is that they can do giant, messy art projects at school and not make a giant mess at home. Case in point: 'gadget' painting.

By the end of the project, the shark outline disappeared entirely. But it's at preschool, so somebody else has to clean it up! Unless, of course, you are one of the parent helpers that day. Oh well.

- Mike, Corinne and Anders

6/52 - Snow!

There was one noteworthy event in the past week that towered over all others: Snow! After a long wait, winter finally arrived in Trout Lake. It was a slow accumulating storm which doled out a new allowance each day; Friday morning, there were 7" on the ground and the storm had paused. Snow started up again by mid-afternoon, and by Saturday morning, another 8" had fallen. Then another 5" by Sunday morning. Snow! This is certainly not considered a "big" storm by Trout Lake standards, but it's the first we've had this year, so it still counts.

Snow clearing duty

Fun in the snow!

On Saturday we all took a snowshoe walk through the forest. Every once in a while the wind would blow a "snow bomb" off the trees, resulting in a heavy shower of snow on our heads. Eventually we started triggering them intentionally.

Even though we taught him to duck his head down when the snow fell, Anders never truly got comfortable with the idea. Perhaps it had something to do with my explanation of avalanches.

He did enjoy sliding down the slide on his play structure into the snow, at maximum speed. At the beginning of the video, you can see a mild "snow bomb" in the background.

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Sunday we spent more time outside in the snow, this time sledding. We haven't explored the local sledding hills yet, but so far Anders is pretty content with being pushed down the gentle slope in our driveway.

Then came the most polite snowball fight ever. We stood a few feet apart and each took turns tossing snow into the air at another person. Anders would tell us whose turn it was and at whom they were to throw snow.

He always has a big smile, even after getting smacked on the top of his head with a giant ball of snow.

Hood River actually got hit with this storm as much as we did, and Anders's HR preschool was closed on Friday and Monday. We typically work from home except on days when we take him to school, so we had no reason to go into the "big city" (aka White Salmon or Hood River). In fact, Corinne hadn't left Trout Lake in 12 days!

We saved lots of time driving, but we did have to dig a little deeper into the freezer and pantry for our meals. We ran out of eggs over the weekend, but a 1 mile cross country ski ride later fixed that. Thanks, Green Pastures Farm!

The snow, however, may be short lived. Temperatures spiked up above 50, and the rains poured down. Within the span of only a day, most of the snow disappeared. We hope that there's at least a little more of winter still on the way.

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders