When doing some volunteer work at a small, rural library, south of Eugene, Kevin was telling one of the volunteer librarians about our move into the ‘Woods’ of the Cascade Foothills. The librarian, an older woman, well-seasoned in rural living, peered over her glasses at Kevin and posed an important question.
“Have you made it through a Winter yet?”, she asked.
“Nope”, said Kevin, “This will be our first!”
She just smiled at Kevin, with a wise and knowing acceptance.
Our first Winter at Aqua Gardens Villa was far more intense that we could have ever imagined. January was glorious, offering nearly ‘shirt sleeve’ weather as we cleared brush and burned away the years of brushy neglect that we had inherited.
February seemed to be going just as well. We planned a ‘Soup Sunday’ for the last Sunday in February and invited many of the locals that we had befriended. But the weather turned on us dramatically and as John worked to prepare 3 large pots of Soup to serve our guests, it began to snow… and snow… and snow… It was wet snow, weighing down trees and branches all along the road to our house.
We did actually have one intrepid couple coming up the driveway for Soup and a visit. We’d given up on seeing anyone when Tim & Debbie came nearly all the way up to the house before getting stuck in the snow, unable to get to the top or turn around.
Tim sent Debbie in for Soup and proceeded to spend 2 or 3 hours digging his SUV out of the snow just enough to turn around and point his car downhill. He finally came in for some Soup after his noble struggle was won. He was hungry! Before they left, the power flickered out. We waited to see if the Generator would come on and after about a minute, sure enough, the lights came back on.
The Generator doesn’t power the gate on the lower lot so Kevin had to ride down the hill with Tim and Debbie to use the remote control for the back-up, battery operated gate control to allow them to get back onto North Bank Road. Tim left him ski poles to help him get back up the hill to the house.
We heard later how they had just barely made it out ahead of a half-dozen tree-falls that blocked the road for the next week.
Our power was out for over a week and it took even longer for us to leave the property since we had to find someone to plow the ½ mile long driveway. The storm was historic in scope. A train full of travelers was stuck in Oakridge for several days and the story made the National News.
One important lesson we learned was how much propane it takes to keep the generator running for a week – let’s just say “it ain’t cheap”. But we were most grateful that for sister’s foresight in putting in that generator. It kept our lights/phone/internet functioning, allowing us to maintain contact with the outside world. Our internet was especially tricky since all we had at that point was Satellite Internet. The satellite dish required regular sweeping to keep the snow from blocking the signal. (Luckily, there are now several more reliable options although we do still maintain a satellite internet account as a failsafe backup).
The bottom line, though, is that we did in fact make it through our first winter here. We learned the importance of connections to our community, our neighbors, as well as maintaining a full tank of propane!