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| I live well to the left (West) of this image. |
The morning was quite warm as we reached 50 degrees. Then in the early afternoon it changed. Usually when we have a massive cold air system east of the mountains trying to push over the mountains, the cold air is held out of the Valley until near sundown as the day's heat usually keeps the cold air back. But this cold air mass must have been really massive. The wind started to pick up slightly around 1 pm. Before 2 pm I decided to ride my bicycle uptown to the library even though that meant riding back against the wind. I looked over to the gap in the mountains that leads to Marias Pass. I could see the cold air starting to come out of the gap. I really wanted to ride to the library and thought I could get back home before the full force arrived to my part of the Valley.
That didn't happen. I was a very optimistic fool.
The wind increased as I rode my bicycle home and at the end I was riding against 30 to 37 mph winds with gusts over 40 mph. At times I was riding only 8 mph. One 5 to 10 minute period snow pellets were driven in the wind against me. They stung fierce. Once I had gotten home I had ridden 36 miles for the day.
Once I got home a little after 4 pm the outside temperature was 20 degrees. It was colder than I thought but that may have been because I was generating so much heat from the effort. I lit a fire in my wood stove and as I write this near 10 pm I am still working on getting the house to a nice normal warm temperature. I even placed a couple of old t-shirts between the door and the storm door to help stop the cold air blowing in under the storm door.
I found my bicycle cat spinner laying on the ground. The plastic tip in the ground had broken off. Somehow the spinner didn't blow away to the next county. I brought it inside the house.
At 5 pm I went out to give hay to the cattle who were all standing in shelter of the loafing shed. By now some fresh snow was flying through the air unable to land. In the hay shed I found the core making up half of one hay bale standing on end. While there wasn't much wind inside the shed I can only imagine the wind gave a nudge to the slippery oat/barley/pea hay and tipped the core.
Once I loaded the pickup with hay I put two wood pallets on top of the hay. I didn't want the hay to blow out of the pickup as I drove over to the cattle's feeder. I got most of the hay into the feeders. I fought to keep the hay - and me - from blowing away. By now - according to the local weather statistics - the wind was blowing 40 to 42 mph with gusts up to 56 mph.
I filled the pickup again with hay for the cattle in the morning, tossed another pallet on the hay, drove the pickup into the pole shed and called it a night after filling the cattle's water trough.
All this with a sore back. A few days ago I slipped on some ice and my lower back fell on/against some concrete blocks. That sore back got even sorer when loading hay into the pickup that evening and due to my sore back I pulled a muscle on one side of my back.
As I was driving to feed the cattle I saw that my neighbor Calvin's large shed had blown over and was a twisted and broken mess. A few years ago he had built a decent sized shed to store his split firewood. Unfortunately the shed's open side was the direction of the wind. His stacked firewood is still standing. My buildings are rattling loudly but so far - at least to dark - they are still standing.
The wind is roaring outside. Daisy hasn't even once asked to go outside. A few times she looked outside through the windows. The rest of the time she lays by the wood stove all stretched out.
The storm is supposed to end 11 am tomorrow.
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