Finally back. ;)

[capt jake]

Nasty wind storm blew through here last week. Almost 5 day without power! Thanks to Mike R I have had a generator for thae past few days. #2000 of branches and limbs to the recycle center. Only lost one large tree, about 75' tall Fir.

Good opportunity to clean out the refridgerator. Now I have 5 days of stuff to take care of. :shock: Laundry, re-programming every digital item.......

[Tom Lathrop]

John,

We on the southeast coast can empathize with you in restoration from long power outages and storms. Hope nothing was lost that cannot be replaced easily. Our mantra that works well is such things is "it's just stuff". No water and mud I hope. Make a nice toddy and have a great Christmas

[Joel]

Hi John, Good to see you back. We were only out of power for 2 days. We shared a generator with my neighbor across the street, so we had heat and water. The only damage we had was a small piece of fence that fell over. Lots of small branches in the yard. Got it all cleaned up in a couple hours. Sounds like you had way more work than that! Have you heard anything from Barry?

joel

[Barry Pyeatt]

Nasty wind storm blew through here last week. Almost 5 day without a nice hot shower! Thanks to my son, I have had a generator for the last two days. Still have major trees down all around me. Lost three large Fir trees, a whole log of smaller Alder, Malple and a beautiful 55' tall Hemlock.

Got home on the Tuesday before the storm. Had a bit of freezer stuff that I had to throw out and all the stuff in the frige. No big loss there, as I hadn't been shopping yet to stock up.

Still without ipower, nternet or Cable. So, I'm on the wireless laptop right now. They are working on the main line about a mile away, with probably hundreds of trees down over the lines and poles broken and down as well. Some of the main roads are closed in this area due to too much debris and power lines down. I have to walk about a mile to get to my vehicle, which is parked along side a big warehouse store that is still trying to get power up and running.

But the most important thing to me was the tree that came down on Whidbey, right beside Spritwind. Not a scratch on it anywhere though, but a lot of needles and boughs laying across it. Another few feet to the right and it would have had some major damage if not outright total loss.

But I'm fine, Jody had her wood stove to keep things warm and toasty, and do some basic cooking on the top. Few candles, a portable radio/CD player some flashlights and lots of bottled water.

Welcome to the Pacific Northwest. No hurricanes, just big wind storms and earthquakes. We keep trying to tell out of state people that this is a dangerous place to live, but they don't listen. :roll:

Glad to hear that you guys are OK. Hope the Holidays are good for all of you.

[capt jake]

Glad to hear that everybody else is OK too. Tom, I don't envey you guys there. I watch the dockside cam when you have a storm roll in. :shock:

Now to warm the shop back up! Brrrr, 34.

[P Doug (WA)]

Welcome to the Pacific Northwest. No hurricanes' date=' just big wind storms and earthquakes. We keep trying to tell out of state people that this is a dangerous place to live, but they don't listen. :roll:

Glad to hear that you guys are OK. Hope the Holidays are good for all of you.[/quote']

Don't forget to tell them about the volcanos, forest fires and on this side of the state we glow in the dark!

[capt jake]

Welcome to the Pacific Northwest. No hurricanes' date=' just big wind storms and earthquakes. We keep trying to tell out of state people that this is a dangerous place to live, but they don't listen. :roll:

Glad to hear that you guys are OK. Hope the Holidays are good for all of you.[/quote']

Don't forget to tell them about the volcanos, forest fires and on this side of the state we glow in the dark!

Earthquakes....'Glow in the dark' and we pay premim taxes for that as well. ;)

[Mike Pennington]

I went to Redmond High School and lived on Lake Washington, the far side of Seattle. I later moved to Orcas Island, before moving to Alaska. Beautiful country, one has to love that trade off :wink: The area was no doubt an influence, as far as sailing goes.

We caught the top end of that same wind storm here in southcentral Alaska. Followed by eighteen inches of snow I figure the snowplow guy needs to make a living too.

Say, Barry, umm, get out the chainsaw buddy. 8) You sure named off some nice wood. I'm drooling :icecream:

Merry Christmas Builders :x-mas:

[Barry Pyeatt]

The road is finally cleared, I can actually drive up to my parking spot. Hurray! They still have to replace two power poles leading into my place. No hurry, though there are still quite a few that don't even have power.

I have a couple guys coming to cut up some of the downed trees into mill lengths. Than a local mill up in the Cathcart area is coming to pick them up and see what I can get out of them. One of the larger Doug Firs is a little over 3' in diameter at about 24" up from the base. No branches on the first 38 feet of it. The Hemlock is almost as big in diameter althugh it is shorter by quite a bit, and has had its lower branches trimmed many long years ago. The Alders are large enough to get some good lumber from and the mill is interested in trading somc millwork for the Alders, the smaller Doug Firs and the large Maple.

Got another guy that will come clean up the trimmed branches and misc. and haul it off to be ground up into mulch.

Who knows, it may begin to look OK within a few more weeks.

Mike,

I located back here after living in the Detroit area for many years. Couldn't wait to get back. Moved into a property just East of Redmond on Bear Creek and ended up developing it with some homes that had to be removed from where Microsoft is now. Remodeled all of them and then sold them off and moved about 7 miles North of there. Have wanted to get a vacation home in the San Juans for years. Have looked at many places on Orcas, Lopez and San Juan Islands. But haven't found anything that quite fits yet. Absolutely love the area around the area West of Anacortes and have considered building out there as well.

Not sure I could handle being that far up the coast on a year 'round basis. But my oldest son is up in Anchorage for a while working on land development projects from the legal aspects. He seems to love it there.