Snow Turns to Lots of Rain

Now the east coast and south are getting hit with a "historic storm" of ice and snow.  This winter's weather seems to say, "something is going on" and "the climate is changing".  I think the climate is changing.  I don't know much about the science of climate change, however, so I'll just say it's getting different and has been noticeable here for a few years.  

We've had almost no rain so far this winter in Oregon.  We have had two severe and strange snow and ice events.  But now, it's back to rain, and lots of it.  The snow hasn't even completely melted where it got piled up, at least.

My backyard is all puddles and yuck from two days of rain.

My backyard isn't level and the soil is clay which is almost impenetrable.  Water doesn't absorb.   It has to run off and if there's nowhere for that to easily happen it stands in the low spots.  Sometimes the puddles are knee deep in the back.

It's really yukky.  I need to one day haul in enough dirt to create slope at least so it can get onto the driveway and run off from there down the driveway to the street.  But dirt is expensive and I have no way to haul it here anyway.  So I make do with the winter lake that the back becomes.

At least it's not knee deep yet out back.

I take photos because then its easier to know where the low spots are.

While Cougie and Rogue are now on the mend and feeling better, I think I am about to lose my dear friend Electra.  She struggled a few months back with a bad cold, but she finally rallied, and recovered.  A month ago, she got another cold and has been unable to rally.  She seems over the cold, but has no energy.  I've been giving her fluids and keeping her warm but I think she's worn out and ready to leave me.  She's 15.  She wants to be near me or the other cats and Starry, the motherly torti from the N. Albany swamp, obliges, giving her baths and laying beside her to share her own body heat.

It is possible since the cold has finally waned she is catching up on the sleep she lost with the constant battle of fluids in her sinuses dripping down her throat.  It kept her up and unable to sleep much, as it has with many people who catch that sinus drainage down the back of the throat type cold.

She also got steaming sessions to loosen up the congestion and then, at the end, something that helped her greatly finally get sleep, antihistamines in the evening, to dry her up so she could sleep.

Starry is often beside her, laying against her or grooming her.  So is Slurpy, the chirping torti.

Slurpy, one of the nicest cats in the world

We here in Oregon have are eyes turned towards spring.  I bet others do also in many parts of this country.  We have had storm after freezing cold storm here in America---unseasonably cold.  Many of us struggle with the increased heat bills too.  This has been a tough winter for America.  But spring is coming!