Washingtonians

[Ogress]

I love it here in North Bend, and I think most of the people here would agree. I can't count the times I'd be sitting with other parents at soccer practices and games, and the sun would hit the mountains and make them glow. Someone will comment: "Yup, that's why I am willing to pay so much for groceries to live here." Of course there are also the times that it is 40 degrees out, icy rains, and the winds are ripping through so strong that you can hardly stand and any umbrealla is useless, but still the kids will have their soocer game and the parents are watching and cursing the fool who scheduled the season to go till Thanksgiving.

I do love the Methow Valley though, and Cle Elum, and Curlew lake, and Pend Orielle County, and even the desert and gorgeous cliffs I see when driving through Ephrata, Soap Lake, Colville... but DH works at Microsoft, and the company does not embrace telecommuting. This is as far east as I could get DH to go, and he was not even willing to go this far until he saw the views. The beauty of the drive home relaxes him, so he is in a much better mood than he was when we lived in Woodinville. That commute was only 6 miles (35 one way from here), but it would take just as long to get home, and he'd be cranky from fighting the traffic on Avondale.

 

[Robert Blosl]

I was born and raised in South West Washington between Portalnd and Seattle. The weather is wet like Seattle but you had good ground to grow a garden to raise cattle and raise chickens. The question today is can you find a job to make a living. Things in certain sections of the coutnry are hard to find a job unless you have the skills that are needed in this region.

If I had it all over again that is the place I would love to live. I use to fish and hunt till I was blue in the face. I use to go up to the Toutle River near Mt. Saint Hellens to fish. I could go to chicken shows to the north of me to the south of me and over the hill to Yakima to that great fair.

Hope you find a spot you like. Listen to the adivice of the folks on this thread. I left in 1968.

I was just reading the history of Centralia the First 50 Years on the net last night. Spent two hours reading about the old days in Centralia and the areas around it.

Got some of the Coat Throat tea bags have two in my pocket right now and the Fisherman Friend cough drops. I have had a sore throat bad for four days. Much better now. Thanks for the advice on cold cures.

Got to go to work and make money to buy chicken feed. Did sell a trio of Cornish Bantams and a Pair of Gray Call Ducks to buy feed for two months. Thank goodness for the internet. Thanks Al Gore for inventing it. I wish you would get back into Politics again so Global warming would come back I am frezzin my self to death down here with these cold fronts.

bob

 

[Rare Feathers Farm]

Quote:
Well, Okanogan is 5 hours east of Seattle, 3 hours North (and slightly east) of Yakima, and 3 hours west of Spokane. We are 40 miles (as the crow flies) from the Canadian border.

Pullman is almost 5 hours southeast from us and south of Spokane.

 

[Rare Feathers Farm]

There are no poisonous snakes anywhere....only venomous.

That said, Western WA state doesn't have any snakes that are potentially problematic (unless you just don't like snakes). There are plenty of spiders and non-venomous snakes (racers, garter snakes, etc).

Over here, we have the Western Rattlesnake. They are generally quiet and very shy. I have seen a few and moved a few off the road before. http://depts.washington.edu/natmap/maps/wa/reptiles/WA_w_rattlesnake.html

We have bull snakes which can be quite temperamental. We have racers and we supposedly have gopher snakes although I've never seen one here.

Other than that, we have coyotes, bobcat, lynx, black bears, wolves (just over the hills in the Methow) and there have been confirmed Grizzly bear sightings now in the Northern Cascades. We have LOTS of deer (whitetails and mule), elk, toads, tree frogs, lots of fish, woodland Caribou (over near Colville), moose, grouse, bats, turkey, quail, weasels and more!

Here are some grouse we found near our house this fall:

Weasel (the cats got him):

A sizable spider next to the head of my bed (on the floor, THANK GOD)!

A Junebug--harmless although quite unsettling when they fly into your hair and get tangled!

A bat in the house, that I managed to safely capture and release outside:

LOTS of turkeys!

From my livingroom window:

Suena, "herding" them out of her pasture, with Cash keeping a close eye:

 

[Chickielady]

Quote:
You are totally correct, the Cascades/Sierras/Siskiyous Mountain ranges grab most of the precipitation.
On the western side we have more moderate temps, not too high, not too cold, thanks to the ocean.
All the way down the coast of the continent.
The Eastern side is higher in altitude, and has more wide ranging temps, colder in the winter and hotter in the summer.
All the way to California.
All the way to Mexico !
Eastern Washington is alot like Colorado, and New Mexico, high altitude produces "high desert" conditions.
Pend Orielle County, through East to Bonner County Idaho is not so super high as to be totally high desert, they get more rain than the Wenatchee area thanks to being west of the Cabinet mountain range, the mountains that lie to the east of the Pend Orielle
area 'grabs ' the moisture.
I think it is a pleasant bit of our western clime characteristics and the eastern Washington's dry high desert climes.

So those who lie west of a mountain range, get the most precipt.
Those areas on the other side get alot less.
I hated /hate/ get sick in the horrible California heat, like 113 degrees on April 1st of last year....makes me very ill fast.
The hills, are dead and tender crackly dry by the middle od April...ugly brown everywhere you look. Not a creek or stream...and the lakes get warm and fish die...the dust is everywhere, and it is very difficult to wear make up of any kind as it is sweated right off.
It gets so hot there that our peach trees, tomatoes and cactus in the yard, would get sunburned.
We spent 99% of our day locked the house with the air conditioner on.
Well, off to get some work done.

OK, also edited to post the critters in Nor Cal:
Rattlesnakes, (diamond back) black rat snakes ? (LONG black round, like a tire) and a few others unpleasant...a few timber type rattlers I guess.
White tail the size of grey hounds, racoons, skunks up the kazoo, possums everywhere, crows, jays, lots of sparrow-chickadee types, hummers and larger nectar eating birds.
Occasional black bear, bobcat, and big herds of Roosevelt Elk in the Lake County Mountains.
And of course a coyote herd on every corner.
Every bug in the world...hoppers, aphids to chicadas hissing in the heat....
Trees consiste of 2-4 types of oak, and digger pines up the same kazoo...cottonwoods, rocks, mesquit, creosote bush, star thistle everywhere !!!
On the west side, which is Napa, Sonoma-Mendocino counties, there are Doug Fir, Cedars and weird "Buckeye" trees that have HUGE seed pods, and go dormant in the early summer (smart!) during the heat and drought of the summer.
************Odd too, things grow in the winter there, not the summer.*********************
And every plant and tree down there has stickers, some that will pop the tires on your car !
Hooray for the Dawgs AND the Hawks !!!

 

[hallerlake]

There's a rain shadow in the east side of the Olympic mountains where there's less rain than other parts of western Washington. Sequim is reputed to be a good place to retire, which probably means it's expensive.

 

[ByN8ureHomstead]

Quote:
Your June bugs look different then ours. Bet the chickens still love them.

 

[ReiMiraa]

found an avian vet that will see him at 5pm.

i went to walmart and bought a dog flea and tick shampoo, checking to make sure the ingredients were not the same as the systemic drop kind. sorta took a chance on that.

gave him a bath, i am sure all the moving and scrubbing hurt his leg but them lice dropped and crawled like crazy, had to scrub his head good since that was the last place and they were heading for the high ground.

rinsed him off and used the hair dryer. had to change the towel twice he was sitting on from all the lice dropping off. i cut the feathers around his vent and cutted some clumped egg covered feathers.

he looks good and shiny again and has that attitude in his face. gave him 2 aspirin crushed on feed, he ate it and drank a good amount of water.

so what ever the outcome if he lives or goes to sleep at the vet at least he looks good and is cleaner. will have to have parents bathe him again next week too (if allowed to live)

for reference to other people who have bad lice infestations (which i do) but dusting isn't an option (my lungs) i will post the active pesticide ingredients for people to look into buying for washing their chickens. even though it says it kills flea eggs i am not sure if lice are similar enough to have it kill their eggs too, but i can attest that this stuff is fast acting and the chicken had no adverse reactions.

"Hartz Ultra Guard Plus
Flea and Tick dog shampoo
Kills: fleas, ticks and kills flea eggs for 1 month
deep conditioning
Active ingredients:
d-trans Allethrin
N-octyl bicycloheptene dicarboximide
(s)- methoprene"

 

[Rare Feathers Farm]

Our June bugs are too big to fit through the wire on my runs.

But I do feed my chickens baby mice and they love those.

OH and I forgot about the "Jerusalem crickets!" The chickens DO love those...but GAWD they freak me out! They live under ground and every spring I'll come across them when I am planting my garden.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2049/2150281767_f50f1d33f8.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_6u6A3LIMx.../KoG4GFWPc24/s400/Jerusalem+cricket+photo.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3269/3084720798_cf57226b00.jpg

 

[jbear]

Quote:

I totally agree!!! I hate livin over here in this swamp !!!!

We DO have nice summers over here in West. WA as a general rule...

the lack of nasty spiders/rattlers is def a bonus in my book. and no hanta on this side either. *shudder* that's my deepest fear. ever.

BUT .. it's TOOO GREEEN! lol!!

I Love me some brown mountains. heehee...
We had some friends who drove thru Wenatchee for the first time to visit my parents in The Valley, they described that drive from Wenatchee to Pateros as Orchard Hell.

I personally love it--especially in the summer when you drive by the orchards and it's early evening, the sun is setting all golden--you can hear the sprinklers and feel the cool air.. can you hear the crickets singin'?

*sigh*

or hey EW bug people--is it crickets or grasshoppers? I always said grasshoppers, but it doesn't sound so poetic as crickets..