Strange Winter

Since my last post we have experienced a few minor emergencies. First the car we use to transport the kids broke down. Luckily the kids weren’t in the car at the time. Sacha and my mom ended up walking in the dark the last quarter mile or so to the library event they were going to. They made it on time. It was a pretty easy fix for this car though I am cursing myself for not checking it out before getting it towed. It was something I could have fixed myself for cheaper than we ended up paying but I assumed a worst case scenario.

Then my little commuter car broke down. The radiator is shot. It didn’t strand me and I was able to limp it into the shop. Again this was something I could have fixed myself only I didn’t know what was wrong with it. It was already in the shop and they figured out the problem so I figured they should get the business.

Finally the well pump at the home farm quit working. I spent a good part of the day Sunday figuring out how to get it working again. I got a replacement part, a pressure switch, and I thought I could limp through to the weekend when I was going to try to fix it. I didn’t want to try after work because, if something went wrong, mom and the cows would be out of water until I could get it fixed. This would probably mean taking the next day off work. Mom could get by but the cows would get mighty thirsty. I was hoping that I wouldn’t burn up the pump before the weekend.  

However, we have a friend who is a professional plumber and he agreed to meet me Wednesday night to see if we could get it fixed. He took the old pressure switch which had been fried, out. Unfortunately the pipe fitting for the pressure line from the pump to the pressure switch didn’t fit the new switch.

This was what I had been afraid of. We needed another part to get things going but all of the local stores that carried such things were closed for the evening. The nearest store that was open at this time of day was about fifty miles away. If I had done the job on Saturday, I would have only had to go sixteen miles for the part.

We were looking around for enough parts to cobble things together until we could get the right part and our friend was looking at some old pumps that had broken down and been set aside for parts. There were at least three whole ones and other parts that had, over time, become the piles of junk in the old house that I have been fighting and trying to get cleaned up over the last several years.

Our friend found a fitting that he thought he might be able to cobble on to the pressure switch to get it going. He took it down to the pump and was getting ready to install it when I had the thought to look at another, older, pump that had broken down and been set aside. Wouldn’t you know it? The exact fitting we needed was on that old pump.

The logic of keeping things because you might need them or their parts some day paid off in this instance. In my experience though, this is rare. Usually you can’t find what you need because it is buried by other stuff you have saved. And this almost happened this time. The old pump kind of blended in with the other junk and we had been walking right by it for an hour. It was mostly an afterthought that I looked more closely at it.

At any rate, the pressure switch was put back together and the pump was checked. Everything seemed to be working fine. Problem solved and I have no complaints. Now I have all day Saturday to continue cleaning out the basement and probably, ironically, scrapping that old savior pump.

The topic of this blog post is Strange Winter, but all of what I have just related is not really strange. Little emergencies happen with us all the time, as I am sure they do with most people and, quite often, they seem to happen in clusters. Now to the topic of this post:

I thought I would be a little remiss if I didn’t mention the strange winter we have been having. As I have stated in a previous post, the Incredible Shrinking Glacier of  1/31/14, I happen to think that climate change is real. This one overly warm winter isn’t necessarily proof of climate change, similar ones have occurred in the past. In that previous blog post I also mentioned that one year, around the turn of the last century, my grandpa and great uncle didn’t get any money for the fur they caught in the mountains because it was so warm that the animals didn’t quit shedding that winter.

However, a steady trend toward warmer overall average temperatures over many years, which we are seeing does provide proof that the climate, overall is getting warmer. Warm air and water rise, cool air and water sink. Strange, unpredictable weather is what we can expect as the change in heat in different parts of the globe effect how the air and water currents that affect huge hemispheric weather patterns move.

From my completely anecdotal observations, the last seven or eight years have been kind of strange. Summers, since about 2007 and 2008 have seemed much more humid. Last February and March were very wet, March was the wettest on record. This last fall and winter there have been at least three flooding events due to heavy rainfall and very high snow line where we, in my experience or to my memory usually only get one, rarely two at this time of year. It is interesting to note though, that the higher snowpack that provides the water for the utility I work for is considered to be normal so far this year at least as far as hydro power generation is concerned. Last year it looked like we were going to get an early spring but then we had a pretty good cold spell in March. It doesn’t appear that this will be happening this year. Maybe we will have a cold spring. We will see.

Weather patterns affect biological patterns. In 2012, the summer was very dry and the high mountain blueberry crop in areas that I observed was minimal with small, dry berries. I think this might have been due in part to the way the snow melted out. The spring was pretty cold and the snow lingered late in many areas. Then it turned off very dry and I think that when the snow melted off many berry patches, there was no moisture left in the ground. The only areas that seemed to produce berries were the more exposed ones and patches along streams that would have melted out the earliest and had water during flower pollination and berry formation.

Weather patterns may affect some things positively or negatively, at least from the human point of view. Grass was starting to grow in our cow pasture in February when it usually doesn’t start until the middle of March. Warmer winters have been linked to the increased survival and, therefore, population of bark beetles in parts of Canada, which increased tree death.

No doubt many things will be changing in ways that might be subtle or subtle at first that will eventually have wider reaching, more dramatic effects.

This year slugs were out on the 13^th of February, and I observed coltsfoot (Petasites palmatus) in Marblemount and Osoberry (Oemleria cerasiformis) in Rockport beginning to bloom a week later. These things usually don’t start until mid-March at least. At the same time, some willows that I am familiar with haven’t put out catkins yet when it seems like they are usually blooming in February. I haven’t seen many frogs out yet this year. Red-legged frog (Rana aurora) breeding season starts in March and I haven’t seen any on the road at night yet. It is quite common to see them during breeding season so it appears that at least this species is still on a typical schedule, which may be influenced by photo period or length of daylight. 

Sauk Mountain, February 2015. In my post, The Incredible Shrinking Glacier of January 31st, 2014, I mentioned my concern that the brushy areas near the bottom of the meadows didn't have any snow. As one can see, this year the entire mountain didn't get much snow. A day or two before I took this photo I heard about some people who walked all the way to the top without snow gear. 

Sauk Mountain, winter 2008. This is the winter look of Sauk Mountain that I have been familiar with most of my life. 

Sauk Mountain from Highway 20 near Hamilton, February 2015. 

Same spot as above photo, winter 2008.