Preparations continue for winter. Small jobs, nothing big, regular maintenance. Today, E dealt with the weather station.

It was all well and good to note that it was really windy out or raining heavily, but how much? Our weather station sits at the edge of the cliff and is linked to the Weather Underground app. It can be monitored anywhere.

We are in the lea of a large rock face which protects us from southern winds, so our station isn’t accurate for how bad it might be out on the water in front of us… but you get the idea.

We have learned what we long suspected – that our temperatures are consistently four degrees warmer than on Vancouver island right in front of us.

E climbed out on the cliff edge to change the batteries and clean the rain gauge. The gauge hasn’t worked all year so hopefully my numbers will be more complete next year. As you can see we have pretty mild temperatures year round.

Last January, we were all ticking along quite happily with slightly colder temperatures at night and then, suddenly boom, it dropped to -4. None of us were expecting it. It only lasted two days but in the meantime almost everyone I know had problems with their water supplies.

It wasn’t a particularly harsh winter storm in the grand scheme of things but the extra three degree drop happened so unexpectedly there was a wide variety of burst pipes around the island. Our tap at the well cracked and unknowingly dripped for weeks.

I made my first gluten free pumpkin spice muffins today. Honestly, the house smells so good. I love the fall.

The winter nature show is starting up. We had our first sea lion pass under the deck this morning. Fingers crossed for lots of great pics

for your entertainment