In the last 3 weeks we had a reprieve from winter, with 3.5 inches of
rain clearing away the snow we'd accumulated, and the lake
thawing. The week ahead promises a return to proper winter...
Dec. 14
December is always busy... The lake is mostly unfrozen, although the Mill Pond is covered with a thin sheet...
The lake level drops through the summer, went up briefly in the fall
rainy season, and is low enough to uncover interesting bits of the
past... The past is not always the good old days... I've
heard stories of a creek in the Silver Valley that could eat the metal
head off of a wood handled hammer in a week, from acidic outflows of
mining and smeltering. Other creeks people would build outhouses
over the creek to make their waste somebody else's problem. So
here's a photo from along Spirit Lake:
I googled wire wrapped wood pipe and learned this was a new product in
1908, the year the town of Spirit Lake was founded. It was
probably a sewer conduit leading into the lake. In spite of all
that, it's a remarkable bit of low technology, using wood and wire to
make a pipe... It seems like leaks would have been inevitable, as
would roots growing in to gather water and nutrients... The
article I read pointed to a few still in use in national parks...
On a different topic, here's Butters searching for the kokanee which mostly haven't come to spawn this year
the windrow of pine needles and pond grass was formed from some windy days...
Dec. 17
We had our holiday lighted parade last night. Downtown Spirit
Lake really seemed to come alive with the spirit as the small but
impressive parade met with a largest ever enthusiastic crowd along
Maine St.
Before it started this classy car was alongside the (new this year)
Messy's Burgers restaurant, in the building that was our post office
when we moved to town, and most recently our veterinarian...
Next to it is the new decor store Clutter, the new (management) mexican
restaurant Mi Pueblo, the recent Blackwell Lounge, and above (or in
summer behind) Fresh Air E-bikes... All of these buildings were closed
for many years when we moved here...
The high school choir warmed up the chilly night with some carols...
The parade started with another of our neighbors, the Baptist church,
which recently started the Awana club (and paved their large parking
lot next to our pottery last summer). They also had a wonderful
float in the parade, which I missed, busily wheeling my cart with
candles and a small Christmas tree...
Our local library had a story hour at the (recently new) Brickel Creek
Coffee Shop, before hopping on the hay wagon to be in the parade (note
the red bag of candy about to be distributed on the street)
The idea for our lighted parade grew out of our lawn mower drag races,
and the first one involved mostly lawn mowers decorated like these...
Here are local fat E-bike enthusiasts, along with our new Parks and Rec coordinator with her child...
There were several iterations of Santa, including on the fire truck, but this one had the jazziest sleigh...
Ho Ho Ho!
Immediately after the parade I left for Spokane to run sound for the INBMA showcase. I set up in time to play carols instrumentally for about 15 minutes...
Here are the photos I took at the event... December2017
Dec. 21
This week was marked by steady snow for 24 hours, ending up with 14
inches of fresh snow on Tuesday. Since then it's gotten colder
and it's clearly here for a while... The snow was too wet for our
snowblower, so we did a lot of shoveling, and were helped by a
volunteer snowplow...
Here's a photo from Wednesday--the pines got loaded down and some bend
over, never to recover. The fir trees branches tend to break off
and land at the base of the tree. There were lots of both, and
minor electric outages here and longer ones in the rural areas...
This is the old railroad grade.
Dec. 30
2 of our cats have figured out how to get the door open to the main
part of the pottery display area, where warmth and food await, by going
around to the separate door where my pottery workshop is, and meowing
for me. When I come out they trot back to the door to other door
that they want to go in. I count this as animal rational
thought--I want in, I get doorman to open door for me. One of our
cats is a laser enthusiast, and she knows the sound of my desk drawer
opening when I get the toy out. So I often get her full attention
when I open my drawer to get a pen...
Meanwhile, Butters is always attentive to whatever I'm doing, and
figured out when I lay down my reading glasses that I wear on the
computer that better things may soon happen, like a walk.
Unfortunately I sometimes also lay them down before taking a nap, so he
gets eager when I want to get napping...
Books read and other media of note
Dark
Run and Dark Sky by Mike Brooks A scifi tale that bends genres, verging into mystery
and spy as well as good old fashioned space opera...
