Wind, wind go away

The big northeast blizzard pretty much missed me here Roundtop Mtn., though I was stuck with 50+ mph winds for several days. The forecast called for 6-10 inches of snow, so I feel safe in reporting the prediction was wrong. Snow showers were about all I got. I should point out, though, that the forecast was only off by 20 miles or so. With these kinds of storms, figuring out the track of the storm is the tough part.

In anticipation of the aforementioned 10 inches of snow, I made all my usual snow preparations. I dug out my snow shovels, tucked in the chickens, found all the battery-operated lanterns, installed new batteries and made sure I had plenty of emergency water on hand in case I lost electricity. Fortunately, none of those things were needed

Once the wind kicked up, the forest simply howled. I heard trees cracking and had branches fall into the driveway and the lane. Last night one branch fell on the steep-pitched roof and rolled down the whole way, sounding like a herd of elephants and rousting the dogs’ ire but causing no damage.

I don’t do wind well, I’m afraid. Go ahead and call me a wimp.  Living in the forest, I am more concerned about wind than any other natural problem.  I retreated to the coziness of the cabin and only came out to quickly run the dogs. But we all made it through, and now, after one of the colder Decembers on record (might make the top 10 coldest here), I am ready for the warm up. The warm-up won’t be enough for me to bring out the t-shirts and will only result in warmer than normal temperatures for a few or maybe several days. But after the first 3.5 weeks of December that already sounds heavenly.