THE BIG SNOW OF 2023

So it all started like this

while walking the dog and picking up her poop next a palm tree.

What's this?

Snow???

No way!

In my lifetime it's only snowed in Southern California 2 other times 

that I can think of,

the non mountainous areas that is.

And as we kept walking more came down,

on roof tops and parked cars.

Such a novelty,

and our pup Sophie loved it!

We had heard it was going to snow in our mountains

 but had no idea it was going to come down to us here in Anaheim Hills.

We are anywhere between 410 to 745 feet in elevation.

So I texted our neighbor Rebecca who lives below our cabin 

and she said it was snowing like she's never seen before!

She is a fifty something Army veteran 

who grew up in Crestline

 and said she had never seen it snowing so hard there.

Crestline is at 5000 feet,

the lowest elevation of all the mountain towns in So.Cal.,

but apparently the hardest hit.

Luckily she had she son there with her.

She said she heard trees falling and branches breaking.

Thank goodness her home survived.

The next day on the TV news channels, 

we heard that our only grocery store,

Goodwin and Sons in Crestline,

 had it's entire roof collapse.

Another store,

 our only hardware store's roof collapsed as well.

Oh no!!

And the roads were blocked and no one could get in or out.

It took Rebecca and her grown son

3 days to shovel themselves out of their front door

to get to their car.

And it was completely buried in snow.

But still no one could drive their cars 

because there was even too much snow for the plows.

She measured her snowdrift at over 6ft. tall.

So many were stuck with no food, heat, medicines or mail service.

Rebecca could not get her medicines.

I think they were eventually helicoptered in.

Goodwin Market in 1946

Goodwin and Sons in 2023 before the Big Storm came in

Ariel view of  it's collapsed roof

Demolition began after most of the snow melted

For days after the storm and collapse,

Goodwin and Sons,

Crestline's family owned grocery since 1946,

 was giving away undamaged food and other necessities for free

to anyone who could get into town.

This was an all in one store,

 complete with not only groceries,

but an old time soda fountain and candy shop, fishing supplies, gift shop,

mountain gear and house hold necessities.

I can't even image the cost of all they lost in this disaster.

Townsfolk were distributing the freebies to neighbors who couldn't get into town.

Our dear friend Chris,

 who lives up in Crestline full time,

knew the storm was coming so he went down the mountain to Costco

and bought $400 worth of food for himself the day before it started.

Thank goodness because 2 of his close neighbors were without heat or food.

They were barely able to walk thru the snow to get to his cabin

and he invited them to stay in his one bedroom place.

So for two weeks he feed them

and he said they watched a lot of movies.

Couldn't do much of anything else.

Chris loves to entertain.

He grew up in his parent's Victorian Bed & Breakfast in Seattle Washington,

and helped run the place for years.

Meanwhile,

back at our little cabin...

Driveway in front of our cabin and big lump of snow on the right is our Jeep

a week after the Big Storm when Rebecca was able to walk up to our cabin 

she took these pictures for us.

My little art studio with a wall of snow against window

Zach with little sis Danielle

Of course my own children were living it up in Mammoth,

a popular ski resort for Southern Californians.

Picture above was a couple of weeks before the Big Snow hit.

And this pix was taken during the storm.

My son and his wife drove thru the blizzard to ski that weekend.

Crazy kids!

When they got done skiing 

and went to find their car it was completely hidden in the snow.

Ha ha!

A good month and a half  later Jim and I finally ventured up 

to try to start our Jeep.

We were really surprised that the soft top hadn't buckled as well.

But it was sopping wet inside.

YUCK!

We did a bit of shoveling so we could back it up and get the battery going again.

But of course it was deader then a doornail.

 We also noticed right away that the yard was a total disaster.

Many downed trees and large branches,

but my dear Camellias survived with their buds ready to open.

How about that?.

Thank goodness there were no leeks inside the place.

Just the pilot light inside had blown out.

An easy fix.

But then we had another revolting development.

When we headed into town for a new battery,

we had a bit of a misstep,

more like a slip and slide into a 6 foot snowbank

 with Jims classic Mustang Convertible,

his boy toy.

Yes another accident!

I wasn't driving,

thank goodness,

 and I had on my seatbelt.

Can't say the same for my significant other.

Some of us don't learn our lessons.

And it was an expensive one.

We had to be towed all the way back to Orange County 

and it was $12 a mile.

Let's see,

with tax it came out to about $450.

Yep.

With an overweight 40 lb. pup in our lap between us,

we squished into the cab of the tow truck.

It was quite a picture.

Sadly our Insurance Co. won't pay to repair this gorgeous car 

that my husband has taken such loving care of.

It was going to cost them too much so they are totaling it 

and giving us a bit above Kelly Blue book for it.

Jim had just put in a brand new engine last year.

I thought he was going to cry.

Oh yea,

and then this happened a couple of days later.

We went back up with our one remaining vehicle,

my VW convertible,

to put in a new battery in the Jeep, 

but that made no difference.

The starter was frozen or something so AAA to the rescue again!

When it rains it pours that's for sure!

And hear we are today,

back to our bedroom community of Yorba Linda/Anaheim Hills, 

looking into the distance at our beloved mountains.

 This one is the San Gabriel Range and Mt. Baldy.

P.S.  Went to cabin again today to pick up our repaired Jeep.

It was just some loose wiring.

Probably a little critter climbed up to shelter itself from the storm.

A TREED KITTY

Our neighbor's dog treed a beautiful bobcat up a tree between our two houses

up on our mountain.

Notice the subtle color running up his back leg?

And just look at that chinny chin chin.

Magnificent!

Then today I saw a thin coyote run across the street from our cabin.

He looked hungry,

and I have a pooch that is all fattened up that he's probably seen on our walks.

Probably licking his chops right now. 

More rain predicted by this weekend.  

Yay!!!

STILL ENJOYING...

a favorite gift,

a black and white shot of our cabin,

 from my son and his wife.

We haven't been up lately but we hear from our neighbor it is covered in snow.

I think we are offically out of our drought.

It's been raining a lot this season already.

Yippy!!!!!!

PUMPKIN LOVE - part two

Displaying my son and daughter-in-law's homegrown pumpkins at the cabin...

and putting up all the harvest decorations throughout home and yard.

That's huge love for me.

Putting out artist/illustrator Patience Brewster's mini 3-d designs come to life,

along with fiber artist Barbara Nelson's stuffed whimsical creations

on a Halloween tree design by Patience is always something I look forward to.

Barbara is still going strong at 87 although this was the first year

the Artistic License Art Show wasn't put on due to Covid where her work is featured.

I've collected one of her whimsical creatures almost every year since I was in my 30's.

Creating pumpkin designs with my new fiber students and and long time dear friends,

was so enjoyable this year.

Aileen Perry,

Whitney High's Biology teacher,

 along with her sister Suzanne Campbell,

Whitney High's Principal's secretary and I have been spending the last 5 months together,

meeting up once a week at my home studio for chatting and creating.

And yes there is mask wearing and social distancing going on!

HA!!

This is satisfying my need to teach as well as keeping me abreast with all the goings on

 at my beloved school that I continue to miss so very much.

Aileen gifted me with the lovely ochre pumpkin in the middle

and inspired me to design my own pumpkins for gifting and display.

Now the gals want to learn to quilt,

so I'm teaching them to eco-dye first to learn about all the dyes that can be extracted from plants.

This will them a rich array of color on cottons and linens to design their quilt with.

Then they will learn to hand stitch and embroider

doing a little preliminary on felt before constructing a mini quilt.

It's up to them where we go after that.

Possibly basketmaking, weaving , felting, bookmaking;

it's all so much fun for me.

It was Aileen's idea to try and make a child's mobile using a few of the characters from Harry Potter.

She has become an avid knitter in only a few months.

Above is the Sorting Hat I demoed for her

(a fairly challenging pattern).

We've also completed the snake and hedgehog and are working on the lion right now.

I'm not a big Harry Potter fan so I used my Sorting Hat as a Halloween display.

Another big love for me during this time of year is collecting and pressing fall leaves.

I just found these from last years collection when I was looking thru a big Coffee Table book.

Amazing how they haven't lost their color in a years time.

Now what to do with them?

Hummm?

This is also the time for us here in Southern Ca. to take down our dried out summer gardens.

This weekend I helped my son remove all his dried up pumpkin and squash vines

and tah dah, 

we can see his backyard again.

I think I might have mentioned a couple of posts back

that when he and his wife moved into their home,

they gutted their backyard.

We amended it with bucket loads of steer and chicken manure,

so the sunflowers they grew were pretty ginormous...

LOL...

as you can see here.

I got to take one of these beauties home with me yesterday,

 and I'll scatter the seeds next spring at the cabin.

Well, maybe not all of them.  

I'll give a lot to our always hungry Blue Jays.

OH NO!

Our raccoon family up at the cabin have been into mischief lately

as the babies are growing and turning into challenging teenagers.

This year we have two raccoon families.

One mother with 2 babies who seems to be managing them pretty well,

doing a lot of tree climbing and begging at our screen door at night.

Mommy #1 showing one of the little ones how to climb our tree outside kitchen window

And then a second mom with 4 underfoot.

Her young ones are at an age where they aren't wanting to listen and follow her anymore

and I feel for her.

No matter how much she scolds them they are constantly disobeying her,

and she is forever rounding them up and trying to corral them

with not much luck.

Second mom scolding her babies to come down out of tree

They've been tipping over pots, 

moving my well placed border logs to look for grub to eat,

digging in planters, 

and eating the Blue Jay's eggs and knocking down their nests.

I know,

all typical things raccoons do I have learned.

So every morning I have new surprises in the yard to deal with.

She finally gets them down so she can come down herself

The nest (top pix) belongs to my favorite Blue Jay family.

 The mother returns each year to make her nest under our front porch eaves

on a wooden platform that the owner before us nailed into place just for her. 

But the teenage raccoons found it before the eggs hatched,

made a delicious dinner of them and knocked down the nest for me to find on the ground. 

Needless to say I was very sad for the Jays.

Mommy #1 at our screen door at about 11:00 p.m.

not afraid of me

I don't know about all of you but I have loved bird's and their nests forever.

And this one is a beauty filled and woven with so many ingredients from our mountain community.

Look closely and you will see dried up thins of mud, 

dried wildflowers (I believe they are Fever Fews),

a piece of plastic string,

bites of cloth strips I put out every year for them along with dryer lint,

pieces of paper and lots of different sized twigs.

It is such a masterpiece of ingenuity.

I've got it displayed on our porch railing for Jim's grands to see.

Still waiting patiently for some grands of my own 

ha ha!

A SPECIAL VISITOR

I always get a thrill when our local bear pays us a visit.

He passed our cabin up for the one above us because they had their trash out,

and our neighbor was home and able to get a quick snap shot of him/her.

Usually it comes down to eat the apples on our other neighbors tree

 except they aren't ready yet.

In fact it's a bit early in the season for a sighting at all.

A WAR ZONE

Recently I posted about the record snowfall we had at the cabin.

Well I finally got up to see it myself.

As I walked the mountain with the dog it looked like no home was spared damage.

Every yard had several trees down.

Some in yards, some on roofs, some on cars.

And worst cases,

100+ year old trees that completely came uprooted and fell to the ground.  

I saw at least 3 of those.

They were big thick ones like you see in the background in the photo above on the left.

It was devastating.

Above is a piece of the tree limb that broke and fell across our jeep.

Jim had to saw it off in parts because it was too heavy to pull off the jeep.

So now he's in the process of sawing it into firewood.

But what a mess!

This is a huge tree that spans over my tiny little studio.

In the photo below is a close up of  where the limb broke.

Luckily it didn't crash onto the studio but instead into part of the yard two photos down.

You can see how close it was to the edge of the studio building.

And right behind that tree was another.

You can see where it cracked at the top

and that the front most tree is holding up the branch from hitting the roof of studio.

Don't know yet how we are going to retrieve that limb.

And another tree that has broken in half behind the main cabin.

But the one I'm most sad about was my son's Japanese Maple 

that I've been nursing along for years until he is in his first home to plant it.

Look at how the limb split off from the main stalk.

My husband said maybe I can tape it together and it might fuse itself back eventually.

I'm going to research it and give it my best try.

But we are so blessed that we didn't have more serious damage like others did.

A RECORD STORM

Almost 17 inches.

Thanks to our neighbors I have some fun pix to post.

A winter wonderland at out friend Chris' house

and a peek outside his kitchen window.

Our sweet jeep as the snow is beginning to melt.

We can really see the huge branch that fell on it.

Also notice that some little tracks where perhaps a squirrel is jumping from the branch to the roof.

Jim braved the rain yesterday and drove up to survey the damage.

It took him 5 times to get up our little hill and into our driveway

(glad I wasn't there to try that with him).

And the branch was too big and heavy for him to pull off jeep so he had to saw it off in pieces

to be able to even get to the porch to enter cabin.

Thank goodness the jeep was not damaged.

The electric was out for 5 days, 

so he had to throw out most of the food,

and I guess the yard is one big mess.

I'll go up this weekend to survey the yard work I have ahead of me,

and do a bit of stitching

while pup Sophie plays in the snow.

First big snow for this gentle giant.

A BIG WHOOPS!

Our first big snow of the season.

Our neighbor took this pix as we can't get up there.

Apparently one of our trees fell on our Jeep.

Have no idea what the damage is yet.

Waiting for the plows so we can go up and check it out.

Took 4 hours for our neighbor to shovel enough snow to get out her door 

and to her driveway.

I think this may be the most snow we've ever experienced since we bought our little cabin.

Our pup Sophie is going to love it!

HELLO FALL ON THE MOUNTAIN!!

The light has turned magical up at the cabin.

The air so fresh with the smell of pine wafting thru the air.

And the temp has finally dropped into the 70's during the day and the 40's at nite.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Down below at home is a different story.

Once again in the 90's this weekend.

Yuck!

The kids (my son and his wife) 

joined us this weekend and they pulled out the hammock

and took turns in it.

We took a 3 mile walk around our Lake Gregory

and identified 3 different  mountain native plants and 4 different pines

pressing the flowers and needles into our little books.

But our biggest pleasure was finding a fresh water lobster...

or as Google identified it a crayfish or crawdad.

First Zach tried his hand at capturing it,

then Nicole took her turn,

both unsuccessfully.

The little guy was about 4 inches long and looked so much like an ocean lobster.

And man or man,

could he scoot and turn on a dime to get away from us.

A first for all.

So much fun!