Frozen Water - aka snow, hail, sleet, snain, freezing rain, snog

December 2008 in northern Oregon has proved to be an interesting time to observe the weather. This is the third December we have spent here. Previously we experienced freezing temperatures and enough snow to satisfy our desire for a "White Christmas". This year we are experiencing what has come to be known as "Arctic Blast 2008". Temperatures have dropped as low as 9 degrees, winds have blown as hard as 45 mph, and snow is still falling after accumulating 18" in our front yard. Interstate highways are closed, chains are required on all vehicles travelling city streets, some homes are without electricity, the kids had the full week BEFORE Winter Break off as snow days, and the largest shopping mall in the area only had three stores open Saturday.

Our observations began Sunday, December 14. We had an early breakfast at church, a monthly activity sponsored by the men's group but open to all; only seven people showed up. The forecast was for possible snow in the afternoon but everything was clear when we arrived at 7:45AM. During breakfast the pastor called and said it was snowing at his place and he couldn't get to the church so was cancelling the morning services. We opened the door and looked out upon a steady fall of large fluffy flakes that were not melting as they hit the ground. We decided that since we had prayed, eaten, taken up a collection for the food, and told a joke that it was OK to leave. We divided up the church roster and took it home to call other members and tell them of the cancellation. When we got to the parking lot, it was already covered with snow and we had to clean the windshield before we could start the drive home.

After a slight slip/slide getting out onto the main highway we had a smooth drive home, only seeing one car off into the ditch.

There were relatively few cars on the road.
No cars had been in or out our road since the snow had started. I kept the car in low and going about 5mph up the grade leading to the house and Sandra opened the garage door as soon as we were in range so I didn't have to slow down to get into the garage.

Monday morning we went out for a brief walk to feed the ducks at a pond near the house. Garbage was to be collected that day so I put the collection bins out at the curb. There had been a freezing rain overnight and the road was slick, the only vehicle using the road was the post office truck using chains.

Sandra put on her high top boots to get better traction.

Little did we know that before we had gotten 100 feet from the house she would step on a slick ice spot and fall. She got a bad sprain/twist of her ankle and has been laid up in the house since.

She has been able to watch the snow fall in our back yard from the sliding glass door in the dining room.

We began to get a mix of freezing rain and snow on Saturday night, almost a week after the snow began to fall. Although it was beautiful as it coated the trees it brought with it falling limbs and power outages.
We could hear the ice hitting the windows during the night and when we woke up and tried to look out our upstairs window, we were greeted with a coating of ice.

We occasionally hear creaks as the roof groans under the load of snow. I climbed up into the attic to be sure no snow was blowing in through the vents. Melting snow in the attic isn't something that I want to deal with. No snow was seen, but it sure was cold.

We are using the bench in the back yard as a "snow gauge". This is the level on Sunday morning.
and this is what we saw Monday morning; its misleading because the sleet compressed Sunday's snow.
This is what happens to Thanksgiving decorations left out in 9 degree weather.We are using the millstone by the front door as a snow gauge also. This is what it looked like in November.
But last Sunday afternoon the snow began to accumulate
and continued to builduntil Thursday when we had a slight warming spell

but it hit its peak Sunday afternoon, one week after the first snowfall.I measured 17" in the front yard Monday morning
and some of that was a "sandwich" of snow/ice/snow.
This is the road leading up to our house which sits at the top of the cul-de-sac.
Wonder why no one has come to visit us this week?

The weather bureau says the temperatures may be going up some during the day for the next few days but still below freezing at night; so some melting that will freeze again as ice during the night. One nice thing about being retired; I don't have to go into work. White Christmas? well it's anybody's guess right now. Sandra's biggest concerns are Pre-Christmas sales and "What about all the After-Christmas sales?"

This is the view out our front door of the house next door

and the car in the driveway.

This is the view from our second floor window. Can you see the road?

The garbage hasn't been collected in two weeks, but at least it isn't hot and smelly!

Any body have a guess what this is?

(hint) it's sitting on the back porch

We may not be able to see it for long as the weather bureau has just issued a winter storm warning for MORE SNOW starting during the day Christmas Eve and continuing into Christmas Day with an additional 3"-5" accumulation.

So, I bundled up and went out to try to knock some snow off the eves and gutters so the new snow doesn't pull them off the roof. I had to watch out not only for falling snow but slabs of ice that were sandwiched between layers of snow.

There were four distinct ice layers of varying thickness on the roof. I removed about one foot of the "sandwich" that was overhanging the gutter; hopefully if we get some above-freezing temperatures that will allow the melt to run off into the gutter and hopefully the downspout isn't frozen solid.

Now, its watch and wait for the next snow fall. I'll be inside with a book and a cup of coffee.

Rice Ball Soup - a Chinese housewarming tradition

When Chinese greet each other it isn't "Hello", it's "Have you eaten yet?". Food is an integral part of life for the Chinese. Since my wife is Chinese (Taiwanese) I have learned a lot about eating for social, as well as nutritional reasons. Recently a young family we met moved into their first house, actually a rental. In keeping with Chinese tradition, we all went over for a housewarming pot luck. One of the dishes that MUST be prepared and served is tang yuan, a glutinous rice ball in sweet soup. Why tang yuan you might ask. Round (yuan) means a circle without an end so a complete and endless relationship; soup (tang), sometimes sweet and sometimes savory so that there would be sweetness and harmony in the relationship, whether it be a wedding, birth, new house, or any number of things. We started early that morning making four colors of rice dough; green, pink, orange, and white.

The colored dough was formed into rectangles which were stacked on top of each other

making a "sandwich" which was then rolled up like a jelly roll.

After cutting into convenient lengths

the sections were reduced in size

then cut into pieces

that were rolled into balls

and more balls

which were dropped into boiling water

and left until they floated to the top indicating they were done.

We took the prepared dough to the party and everyone joined in making rice balls.

Some were very artistic

All were boiled until they floated

then served in either a sweet sugar syrup or a brown sugar-ginger syrup

They were very filling and stuck to your ribs for sure.

Our Own Christmas Tree, the hard way - updated with decorated view

Last year we bought our Christmas tree at a roadside stand near the house; it was going to be a surprise since it was still wrapped up in a net and covered with mud just as it came from the field. That's what you get when you buy the "bargain" tree on the lot. After wrestling it almost into our Aveo and bringing it home we unwrapped it, hosed it down, and did some serious trimming to get it to the size and shape we wanted. Then I had to give the car a good cleaning to get rid of the mud that came along with the tree. We enjoyed the tree, especially the woodsy aroma that it gave to the entire house.

Oregon is a major producer of Christmas trees; it is considered a farm crop. A tree takes 7-8 years to reach marketable size. Last year some farmers were hurt when large orders were cancelled, they hoped to make it up this year. BUT, the changing economy has put a real pinch on the Christmas tree market and many large orders have been cancelled. Farmers are looking to sell off their entire planting of trees and put the land to another use that will bring in the money that they need. As a result the price of Christmas trees has dropped dramatically; a Nobel Fir which would have cost $45-$60 last year can be bought for $15-$20 this year.

We need to do our part to support the local economy so we decided to buy a tree from a local tree farm this year. In addiditon we decided to locate, cut, and haul our own tree. Our daughter has cut their tree at the same place for the past few years. We went out this past Sunday afternoon to cut ours. The farm is located on a mountain road between Portland and the northern coast. The drive was breathtaking, much of the time in fog as the weather was changing and we had intermittent rain storms.

The farm is operated by the Bateman family. It is a "Century Farm" which is the designation given to Oregon farms that have been owned and operated by the same family for over 100 years.

After getting out of the car and arming ourselves with a saw we set out up the hill to view the possibilities. As you might expect, after several years of harvesting the better trees were located some distance from the road.


The Bateman farm has fir, spruce, blue spruce, Nobel fir, and several other varieties that I don't recognize. I gave Sandra the task of locating the tree we would harvest. Some were short and fat.

Some were skinnier

Some were just right but someone had seen it first and tagged it for harvesting later.
We finally located the "perfect" tree





All that remained was to cut it down




We took turns just to say that "we" cut our own tree this year




Now that its cut, the next task was to carry it down the hill to the truck for the journey back to town. We didn't take any pictures of our muddy boots and pants or our gum smeared hands.




After a night drying out the branches and a good shaking to remove loose needles it was time to bring it inside.

Our niece visited us Christmas 2006 and fell in in love with "living upstairs". She wanted to be sure the tree could be seen from upstairs and gave us instructions about where it should be placed.

We put it there and took a picture to send her and let her know that we had to move it to the living room.

We put it in a more "viewable" spot that didn't block traffic, I hope she feels OK with that

FRESH Crabs - an advantage of living near the Pacific Ocean

Dungeness crabs are a specialty of the Pacific Northwest. They sell in the local markets for $5 to $7 per pound, BUT an annual shellfish permit only costs $6.50 and you can catch up to 12 every day. The permit is good for shrimp, clams, and crabs. Crab season runs from December 1 to August 15. You can go out into the bays or ocean on a boat or drop your traps from one of the docks jutting out into the bays around the coastal areas. You can even rent traps on a daily basis. The trap comes with a rotting, smelly fish that you use for bait.

Of course you will get crabs of all types and sizes in your trap


However, you may only keep the male crabs over a certain size - so after measuring and "sexing", all the females and smaller crabs go back into the water.

But, there's plenty left to take home.

The crabbing dock has a place where they will steam them for you free-of-charge if you want; or you can ice them down and take them home to cook yourself. We wanted them FRESH so they made the trip to our kitchen in a bucket of ice. Then after a quick scrub in the sink and they were ready for the pot.

We chose to steam these without crab boil seasoning so that we could enjoy the natural sweetness of the first crabs of the season.

Pop off the top shell and dig in.

As soon as January 1 rolls around I'm off to get my license; then look out crabs here I come.

Puffs, Tarts, and other edibles

When a wife likes to cook and a husband likes to eat - she gets satisfaction and he gets fat. But when both are done in moderation both benefit.

I grew up in the SOUTH; land of butter, lard, turnip greens, cornbread, fried chicken (or anything else), sweet iced tea, and lots of desserts.

My wife grew up overseas in the land of rice, noodles, stir-fry, and things not so sweet or salty.

BUT, she has adjusted well to life in the US including adopting a somewhat modified Paula Deen cooking style. Here are some things she has become "famous" for at our church pot-lucks and family dinners.

In order to "regulate" my intake, rather than make a pumpkin pie or a pecan pie she has chosen to make one-bite sized tarts. She recently invited a couple of her friends over to "practice" before the Thanksgiving holiday.

They made "generic" tart shells

Which could then be filled with pumpkin pie filling

Or pecan pie filling

And baked to perfection

In addition to desserts, her baking extends to the savory like curry puffs

Store-bought puff pastry takes a lot of work out of the process

Filling takes a lot of time

And the waiting .......

But it was worth it