The Devil Wind Returns….

In an earlier blog I mentioned that the name ‘Enumclaw’ was a Salish term for ‘Devil Winds’… well, I was thinking about our Salish friends again recently and how their description of this region could not possibly have been better.

Yes, those devil winds returned this week in earnest.  The east winds started stirring in the wee hours on a Tuesday morning and were coming on in their full glory by sun up on that day.  And they blew and they blew and they blew until finally, by the grace of the Almighty himself/herself, they stopped on Thursday afternoon.  Weatherman said theyʼd be around 40 mph with gusts around 60…

Well… The last big dose of the devil wind came a few years ago which snapped a tree and crushed a camper on its way to impaling our house… very impressive.  That was a 100 mph gust, they said, which also took our windward neighbor’s roofing materials and sent them over to us… thank you very much.

This week’s resurrection of the Enumclaw hurricane took down several very big cedars, Doug firs, maples, and alders on our property, flattened a couple fences, toppled a very stout carport/shelter with my John Deere in it (I conjured up a bout of courage and snaked it out of there with just a broken tail light!), and killed my wife’s car… I mean, I’m sure it’s dead…  A branch from the very big big-leafed maple that dropped on it impaled the Prius like a dagger… went through the engine compartment and all the way to the ground.  Even if the car somehow had vampire tendencies… it would be dead.

Carport shelter

Carport shelter

But thankfully… all our animals survived.  Cadillac, our beautiful boy we got from Brice Conover in Iowa laid on the frozen mound of straw totally hut-less.  We use these heavy plastic calf huts and his just wasn’t anchored properly.  Fortunately a wooded border stopped the thing or it might be providing refugia for fish in the Puget Sound as we speak…

A nice group of five feeder pigs also went hut-less for the same reason.  But the tarp we had over an adjacent area for some chickens fortunately partially blew into their pen and provided them some shelter.  Not to worry… the chickens huddled into one of those igloo dog houses we use for pigs… and call them ‘pig-loos’ of course…

This little unit was anchored to a wooden deck like many of our huts are and rode out the winds like a rock on the prairie.  Several ‘dry lots’… an industry term that is a totally inappropriate in this wet country… were littered with windfall trees, limbs, empty waterers, trash cans, drum lids, empty feed sacks, pieces of tarps, buckets… you name it… all of which only became amusement items for these hardy Berkshires…

Unlike Cadillac and the fabulous five, all the other hogs/pigs still had their huts and just stayed in them… I’m sure quite thankful for their wonderful masters who provided them such luxurious beds of clean straw to lounge in.  Only during feeding time would they venture out… but warily.   When the winds stopped, they were groping about the windfall like kids at Christmas time…

One of the cedars that snapped came to a resting place about 80 feet, I estimate, from its source.  So, I do think we had some gusts quite a bit north of that 60 mph number provided by our trusty weatherman.  The power was out for 2.5 days, and with it the water. Fortunately we had some barrels full of this essential stuff that Zack enjoyed carrying out to the animals two buckets at a time.  He’s in the work out faze of his college baseball program anyway…

Just when I think I understand just how tough these Berkshires are, something happens which gives me a whole other layer of respect for their grit.  Berks can take it … and so can we ‘Heritage Hog Farmers’.   Mother Nature – we’re still here… hoof in hand… and will be ready for whatever adversity you have in store for us next time.

Love your pigs.  Hang with them all you can.  Talk to them and scratch their ears.

Cheers,

Randy
November, 2014