Mt Spokane Report-Day 1

I’m very anxious to be skiing. It’s now the second day of Winter and my mountain is not open yet. I know the globe is warming but I do not want to attribute this late start to that. Rather, it’s just one of those years. We’ve had them before.

But now that this is something that dominates my daily rumination's, I’m going to start keeping a bit of a record here on Mt Spokane’s progress towards opening for the season.

The snow stake shows a solid three inches of snow on the ground over night. That’s a good start. Please note that the thermometer registers 40 degrees at the time of this capture. That thermometer has been stuck at 40 for several weeks. I have emailed the mountain about it and they have acknowledged it but, it remains at 40. So we will be keeping an eye on that.

And here is the look of the mountain at Lodge 2. As I said, it’s a start but until Old Man Winter starts to cooperate, we are a long way off from skiing. 

It’s Solstice Time

Finally, Winter is here. Maybe now we can get some snow.

It’s been a pretty warm Autumn up until the last couple of days. The forecast is calling for snow over the next few days but it could easily come as rain.

I’m posting this so I will be able to refer back when we get a crap load of snow and I start complaining about having to clear it.

Last Day of Fall

Here it is, the last day of Autumn and there is no Winter in sight.

Mt Spokane was all set to open last week and then the monsoons came rolling through and washed away all the snow.

Here’s how it looked earlier today.

There is snow in the forecast for the coming week but I don’t now if it’s enough to get the chairlifts moving.

Looks like I picked the right year to not buy a Season Pass.

Interweb Outage

It seems like all I’m writing about lately is problems with Utility Services. 

Our internet has been out since Thursday. We hosted Thirsty Thursday this week and we were looking forward to watching Thursday Night Football featuring the Seattle Seahawks vs. the L.A. Ramses.The game was to be on Prime, available only on the interweb.

So when we lost our connection to the World Wide Web, we were devastated to learn we would not be able to see the game.

Fortunately, my Tech-savvy neighbor Derrick was able to get the game on his phone. So we got to watch it on a 3” x 6” screen. Eighteen of us crowded around this tiny screen.

It was a pretty tight game all the way through, even though the Seahawks were down by two touchdowns midway through the game. The Seahawks won 38 - 37, but it went into overtime and down to the last minutes.

Earlier in the afternoon, I received an automated message from Quantum, my interweb provider who said they were working on the problem and would have it repaired by 5AM on Friday. So, we knew in advance that we couldn’t see the game on our TV.

I got up well past 5 on Friday morning and still had no interweb. I got a couple other automated calls during the day that said they were working on the problem and would have it repaired by 9:02AM on Saturday.

As I was going to bed last night, I happened to look at the modem and noticed a solid green light, indicating interweb service.

It was back. I checked my email prior to going to bed and erased most of the 127 emails I had.

Among them were emails from Quantum telling me my interweb service was out and they were working on the problem. 

The fact that they were sending me emails makes me think they don’t really understand how the internet works.

Power Outage

All the weather services started talking on Sunday about the coming windy weather. They said it would be windy on Monday, ease up a bit on Tuesday and be back on Wednesday...all of this with intermittent rain. We were also told to be ready for power outages.

I got in the shower at 7:40 this morning and almost immediately, the power went out. I showered in the dark and made it a short one so as to not use up whatever hot water we had remaining.

I drove around the neighborhood to try and figure out the extent of the outage. It went from our block to the west, over to parts of Monroe Street and south to Buckeye. It didn't look like it went north beyond us and houses down the street to the east from us had power.

The electricity stayed off all day. I essentially did nothing but nap.

We left the house about five to go watch the Gonzaga game. As we left, the power came back. Then went out. After a few more minutes, it was on for good.

I'm sure I have noted this before here in this Blog but let me note it again. I find it quite disquieting how dependent on electricity we are. I do have a generator, but I did not bother to pull it out as I figured the power would come back on sooner. I mean, Hell, we are in the middle of the city. Isn't that a priority?!

Anyway, I think I'm going to dig out the generator and make sure it's working okay and place it where I have better access to it.

The other problem we ran into today was accessing the garage. With the power out, the garage door won't open. We have a side door on it, but the concrete has heaved up to such an extent that it prevented the door from opening much more than a Susan sized sliver.

She was able to get in and detach the door from the rail so we could open the door.

I took a sledgehammer to the concrete and made it a bit more accessible.

In short, not much accomplished today.

2025 Carriage Ride

 Being the second Sunday of December, tonight was the Annual Corbin Park Carriage Ride.

It looked to be a great turnout. I would estimate we had 80 to 100 neighbors milling around the fires and enjoying all kinds of treats.

It has been unseasonably warm lately and tonight was another nice warm evening.

The forecast is calling for rain for the next five days and some huge wind. 

So, stand by.

It’s Christmas Season 2025

Here is how you know that it is officially the Christmas Season.

Christmas Lights 2025

This is the day for the outdoor lights to go up. 

Up on the balcony, we have the icicle lights, the star projection light and the neon running light.

On the front porch, we wrap the pillars with white twinkle lights.

So, here we go.

Thankfully, it was a relatively warm day but the wind was gusting pretty good. We managed to get the lights up in no time at all.

We also got the lights on the balcony up quickly too. 

So now, we’re festive.

Turkey Soup Season

We are down to the best possible conclusion to the Thanksgiving Season. Turkey Soup.

The making of the Turkey soup is one of those holiday traditions that reminds me of my Mom. She always made the Turkey soup after the holidays and she made it with barley, rather than rice or noodles.

I think it’s the barley that brings me back to Mom more than anything else.

9:36 AM: The bird is in the pot and the pot is coming to a boil. Oh boy oh boy oh boy!

9:55 AM: The kitchen is already filling with the smell of Turkey boil. Yum!

2:00 PM: The carcass has been boiled and the broth is cooling. We are going to complete the cook tomorrow and have it ready for Karen and Randy when they come over.

Snow Snow Snow

We have received the first major snowfall of the year. It looks like we got two, maybe three inches and it all needs to be cleared from the sidewalks. I will get out there shortly.

The trick is to decide whether you think the snowfall will melt away naturally or it’s going to remain cold, with the threat of more snow on the way and you need to clear it now.

I have decided that this snow is going to stick around so it better get cleared. The forecast over the next two weeks does not show many temperatures above 40.