Objects in Mirror Are Closer ... Well, You Know

 Okay, third time's a charm ... stupid corporate 'puters at work won't let me save this text. Typed it twice already, so here we go:

Winter is coming. No, that's not a blurb for yet another go-round of Game of Thrones.

Our leaves began falling promptly on August 1st this year, which is not an encouraging sign. We've had snow on the nearby mountains, down to about the 5,000 foot mark - twice in the last week. And it was only 41° here this morning.

This is our fourth consecutive colder-than-normal "summer" season, with LOTS of rain since around the 1st of May. I think we've had 23 days of 70°+ weather this year, in total. I don't have the season's total rainfall in front of me, but 2023 is in the top 5 or 6 wettest summers on record. 

We had 70 mph winds that lasted for nearly 24 hours, last week, and lost yet another tall tree. It's worth noting that we purchased this place, some 7 years ago, largely because of it was heavily-wooded (emphasis on was). But now we've lost roughly 40% of the trees which were here. 

Between the 7.2-magnitude 'quake in 2018, a complete septic system replacement, and lots of heavy rains/snows and wind, there's a lot more daylight - and correspondingly less privacy - than when we moved in. I have faith that God knows exactly what He's doing, and this is not a complaint. Rather, think of it as a chronicling of what's happened during our tenure. 

And then there's this: fireweed, a fairly-reliable indicator of each upcoming winter's snowfall, is signaling another year of heavy snow. Well, okay then. 

I have a large snowblower, and am in better health now than I have been for several years. Bring it.

80 MPH Winds - Update

We have hurricane-force winds today, with falling trees, airborne debris, and all the other fun things that go with it. First power outage of the day was a couple minutes ago, but the lights came back on again. Yay.

Meanwhile, my printer has decided it will only print in grayscale. But that's only when print jobs are sent from the PC. Printing from other devices still renders in color.

I've tried every location for printer preferences I can think of, and everything says it's printing in color. But that's not happening.

Since I set the printer for wireless/network ops, I printed my new driver's license from my phone. At least I can look ruggedly handsome in color, now. 

Update: after 4 1/2 hours, the power came back on. In the meantime, we had heavy wet snow for well over an hour. It didn't stick, of course, but proved an interesting end note to the already-interesting afternoon and evening.