Bad Republicans and Weather

Well, the republicans covered themselves in glory yesterday, on the one year anniversary of the attempted coup.  The House of Representatives held a remembrance for the law enforcement lives lost.  Rep. Liz Cheney and her father were the only republicans there.  The rest were elsewhere.  In the Senate, not one republican was on the floor.  Worse, some of them gave interviews attempting to frame the event as no big deal, happens all the time.  From twitter:

 

The missing republicans.  The Cheneys are on the right.  I don't like their politics, but at least they showed up.

The most disgraceful performance of the day was Ted Cruz groveling before Tucker Carlson, apologizing for ever referring to the insurrection as a "terrorist" attack.  He allowed as how it had been sloppy speech.  Someone give that guy a spine.

We had an active weather day yesterday, the map speaks to what was happening.  Blue is snow, yellow with red in it indicates raining pigs and chickens.  All of the passes were closed due to avalanche danger, downed trees and etc.  Parts of the freeway were closed west of the Cascades between Napavine and Grand Mound, with no alternate routes because of wide spread closures on the back roads.  Issaquah is flooding like crazy because the creek is out of its banks.  This is not normal, one hopes it will not become normal.

It snowed for much of the day here.  Jim was busy with the teeny tiny snow blower.  We're somewhat concerned that the snow being flung off to yard, will eventually be taller than the height of the chute of the blower.  Wet snow does not exit as well as dry snow, the neighbor told us to spray the chute with cooking spray, it does help a little.

Jim removes snow and ice from the hedge.

The blower gets the rest of it off.  We don't know if we really need to be doing this, but the weight of the snow does distort the hedge.

I shoveled the back deck.  Almost all of the snow had to be lifted over the deck railing.  It's getting tall out there on the snow piles.  Buddha does not look happy about this.

Temperatures hit a very balmy 42F(5.5C).  All of the snow on the roads has turned into ugly brown slush, which is now covering the Jeep in dirt.  We took three pairs of boots and a 1/4 zip Patagonia fleece back to REI this morning.  Their return processing is very fast, we were in and out in the twinkling of an eye.  We wanted to get back because the forecast is for 35 mph winds gusting to 50, which could result in downed branches and power outages.  Dinner got cooked early while there was power.  I do miss the gas cook top we had in Tucson, the gas oven not so much.  However, in a pinch we have the Colman two burner camp stove and a five gallon propane tank.  Anyway, I will be very surprised if there is that much wind. 

Today we learned something interesting about the neighborhood.  We're not connected to the city of Spokane storm drain system.  Instead, we have our own drainage system that carries the water off; the water goes to collection tanks under ground, and then leaches out of the tanks into the dirt.  Thus, when snow is melting, it's important that the drains be clear of debris and ice.  When they plow it piles snow up against the curb.  One wonders why the developer did this, but we'll never know.  Anyway, three of the men in the neighborhood spent significant time today shoveling snow and ice away from the drains.  These are not young men, I kept glancing out the window at them making sure no one had clutched their chest and fallen to the ground. 

So that's pretty much it, perfidy and malfeasance from the republicans, and snow.