There has been a lot of intense weather up and down the Pacific coast this week. Tens of thousands of people, many on Vancouver Island, were without power overnight last night after hurricane-force winds from a bomb cyclone system blasted the region. At the peak of the storm, as many as 300,000 customers of B.C. Hydro were without power. Power was restored to many but around 50,000 homes on Vancouver Island remained without power overnight. Farther South, two people were killed by falling trees in Seattle Suburbs. Our electricity company, Puget Sound Energy, posted that at the height of the storm nearly a half million customers were without power. In a statement on social media the company stated, “We anticipate a multiple day outage and encourage customers to make alternate plans as we work to assess the situation and restore power.” A friend who lives across the sound from Seattle on the Olympic Peninsula posted pictures of significant damage to their home caused by a falling tree.

Meanwhile, it has been pretty mild where we live. The bay was absolutely calm yesterday when we went for our walk. I’ve had long bicycle rides every day this week without wind or rain problems. We were able to catch up with a list of outdoor chores yesterday. Our new strawberry plants are all bedded down with mulch. We got the last of our fall bulbs in the ground. I still have a few outdoor chores to complete in the next week or so, but we’re in good shape heading into winter.

Yesterday as we were returning home after a walk down to the beach, a neighbor commented to us, “Winter’s coming!” in an ominous tone of voice. I don’t know that neighbor’s background. Perhaps they are long time residents of this region. Perhaps they moved from some place where winter isn’t very severe. We have neighbors who have moved from Southern California, Texas, and Arizona, where the weather is warmer than we experience. But I’m pretty sure that the neighbor issuing the winter warning hasn’t spent as much time in places where winter weather is severe. We don’t worry about winter much now that we live here. We grew up in Montana, spent a few winters in Chicago, and lived in the Dakotas for more than three decades. We’ve seen blizzards and below zero temperatures and times when it was unsafe to spend any time out of doors.

A little later in the afternoon, we were standing in the middle of the street talking with our neighbor straight across the street from us, exchanging stories. One of the things I like about living where we do is that we have neighbors with whom we visit and live where the traffic is light enough that we can stand in the street and talk. This neighbor used to live in Wyoming and we both have stories of driving on icy roads in high winds picking up our daughters from college. Our daughter attended Western Wyoming Community College in Rock Springs for a year and a half and his went to the University of Wyoming at Laramie. Driving across Wyoming on Interstate 80 in the winter can be a harrowing experience. When the highway closes due to weather or accidents, the semi trucks fill up all of the towns and begin to line up at the exits. When the wind kicks up and it is snowing the heavy duty wreckers have to work in pairs to get all of the trucks and trailers out of the ditches. We agreed that winter isn’t as challenging here as it was when we lived in our former homes. Our neighbor works for the Washington State Ferry and commutes about an hour each way on the Interstate. He rarely has to deal with snow or ice on the road. He did comment that he gets tired of driving in the rain all of the time, but his work hours are such that he doesn’t have to contend with rush hour traffic.

There are other stories that we want to hear from our neighbors. The neighbor across the street had a knee replacement surgery last summer and recovery was slow, but I saw him up on his roof cleaning out his gutters last week and had to comment on the activity and check in to see how he is feeling. And their beloved retriever came to the end of his life last week and we wanted to express our sympathy. That’s another thing I like about this neighborhood. We know a lot of the dogs that live around us. It is a good sign when you recognize which houses belong to the kids and pets you see.

Our neighbor is ready to say goodbye to 2024. It has been a hard year for their family and they are looking forward to a better year with a bit less pain in 2025. I hope that is the way it works out for them. I don’t want to diminish the challenges of this year, but I wouldn’t characterize it as a hard year. I struggled with the first years of retirement. I hadn’t realized how much of an adjustment it would be for me and it took me some time to figure out how to live into a new home in a new place and a new lifestyle. I am finally settling into it now, though. I have some volunteer work that is meaningful for me. I get to play farmer at our son’s place and I’ve learned quite a bit about gardening. We’re making a slow transformation in our yard and each year brings more flowers. And we’re getting to know the neighbors. Life is good.

As we look forward to Thanksgiving, I have a lot of gratitude. The pace of retirement is suiting me and it is good to be surrounded by good neighbors, to have good friends, and to live near to family. I complain about our church from time to time, but we have made some very good friends at church and share meaningful worship and service with them.

And for this week, the storm has passed us by and left us unscathed.