With howling winds and picture-postcard snow, winter keeps us guessing

WINTER THROWS ITS TANTRUMS whether I’m on my island or off. This most petulant of seasons stomped into the San Juans last night with puffed out cheeks and a decidedly icy demeanor.

I left Center Island Wednesday to spend 10 days or so with my sweetheart in rural Thurston County, where we’ve been enjoying a scenic Friday of light snow. Because the National Weather Service predicted frigid temperatures on the way to my island, before leaving I took measures to ensure that Nuthatch Cabin would weather the deep-freeze. Among other things, this involved clearing out the kitchen pantry’s bottom shelf, yanking up an access hatch in the floor and doing a couple of fancy limbo maneuvers to fold my lanky 6-feet-two past the upper shelves of spare olive oil and unopened pancake syrup and down into the dank and murky crawlspace that is the dominion of spiders, water pipes and the occasional hapless mouse.

I use the term “crawlspace” advisedly. With maybe two feet of clearance between the plastic-draped earthen floor and beams above me, I did more wriggling on my belly than actual crawling. The objective: placement of two low-wattage air-dryer units, leftovers from my sailboat-owning days, beneath water pipes that snaked from beam to beam. That done, I plugged the warming units in to a heavy-duty extension cord that I led back up through the pantry to an electrical outlet in the living room. Frozen pipes prevented, I’m hoping.

In addition, I plugged in a small oil-filled radiator next to the bathroom toilet (I’ve seen the tank’s water freeze solid once) and put another portable radiator next to the kitchen sink. As always before departing, I turned off the cabin’s water main and drained faucets.

Such prep seemed justified Thursday as I sat in Tenino reading an email from Center Island’s caretaker. He warned all island homeowners of a forecast for frigid northerly winds by the weekend.

“It is possible that we may not be able to provide water during the coldest part of this cold snap due to reservoir freezing. If you’re here on island, it’s a good idea to have some fresh water reserved for your household use,” he wrote.

It wouldn’t be the first time the island’s water system had seized up when the mercury took a skydive. I already had two five-gallon jugs of emergency drinking water stored on my back porch.

So I assumed all was well Friday morning when we awakened here in Tenino to an inch of sparkling snow on the ground, my first of the season, with temperatures in the low 20s Fahrenheit. The sky soon cleared to a perfect January blue, as pastel-soft as a baby boy’s blanket. My sweetie and I enjoyed walking Chevy, the high-energy dog, on an icy back road to a sun-dappled lake where armadas of winter waterfowl seemed bent on paddling fast enough to keep the water from freezing. It was a beautiful winter day.

On our return, however, a text from my conscientious island neighbor, the Mad Birder, gave me a big chill.

He attached photos showing two very large fir branches — themselves almost the size of small trees — that had plummeted from far above on to my cabin around dawn after a night of banshee winds. M.B. described it as a “massive crash” that made him and his wife think fallen timbers had smacked their own roof.

I soon exhaled with relief as the missive suggested almost no damage to my cabin. A photo showed a large tangle of limbs and fir needles that had come to rest on my front steps.

A phone call to M.B. confirmed that the cabin’s metal roof appeared essentially unscathed, and the stairway’s railing suffered only scratches that could be sanded out.

Winds had diminished, but temperatures hadn’t risen. While we basked in the mid-20s in Tenino, Center Island’s high for the day was about 9 degrees, M.B. told me. I was glad for leaving heat on, and thankful for my generous neighbor who used his chainsaw to clear the mess.

Center Island wasn’t the only place feeling this first seasonal barrage, of course. Harboring hopes for some downhill adventures with my new honey, I’d recently signed up for the daily snow report from White Pass Ski Area, 69 miles from Tenino. A couple days ago the report showed mountain winds gusting in excess of 100 mph. Under “conditions” was just one word, all in caps: BLIZZARD.

I think of how native Northwest tribes ascribe wily ways to wildlife such as ravens. It seems to me that winter has its own wily ways, and I’m probably right in guessing there are more wiles on the way. Enjoy January’s beauty as you can. But let me just say “brrrrr.” Stay warm. Stay safe. And if you’re walking through woods on a blustery day, keep looking up.

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