Enough cold stories, almost.

It's been cold here on the Oregon coast beaches. You are tired of hearing about it, I know, but it's rare for it to be this cold this long. Every year we've been running The Craftsman B&B, this winters have had unusual weather, colder for longer periods of time. I remember we used to get about 2 nights of below freezing. That was enough for the plants to die off to rejuvinate in the spring. The dahlias would stay green all year unless there was a frost. No time for them to build up energy to bloom in the Summer. The fuchia bushes hold flowers until a frost. I cut them to the ground every other year and they do great on the North side of our house.

We have has snow here every year, but until last year, it melted by Noon. Last year it stayed around a few days. We saw ice in the Nestucca river this year. The banks held ice all day and the surface would freeze at night. We had no rain during this cold snap so the water levels remained fairly even. When the tide came in is when the ice broke up. Thin layers of ice flowing down stream was interesting to see.

OK the story of the week is of the frozen squid that washed up onto the beaches this past week. I saw this story on Oregon Coast Beach Connection: Dozens of really large Humboldt Squid are stranding on the north coast – and they’re making a rather spectacular sight by freezing immediately on the beaches and staying intact.
What makes this incident unusual is the cold temperatures of the beaches are freezing these creatures where they land, and the rather spectacular size of many of them. The squid were 4 to 5 feet in length and weighed a little over 25 pounds. One was as tall as aquarium employee Tiffany Boothe, seen in the photo below.

Because they’ve frozen on the sand, each has been remarkably preserved. Usually, shore birds go after the eyes – but they’ve left them alone so far. They’ve also left interesting prints frozen in the sand, with icy sea water all around them.

“These squid typically reside in warmer waters off of California and Mexico, but every once in a while they will follow an offshore warm water current,” Boothe said. “When these currents dissipate, the squid get caught in water far too cold for them to handle and they get hypothermic and die."

This summer we had very warm water on the beaches here in Pacific City. Mid 60's, when the normal temps are in the low 40's.