The snow for today which was predicted to be two inches turned into five inches (12.7 centimeters?) before it turned again, this time into sneet – sleet and icy rain and snow. That’s on top of the however many inches we’ve had through the week. I’ve lost count and I’ve no desire to step out onto that china glaze surface to check.
When the lights flickered a moment ago, the Baron went to draw extra water: no electricity means the pump at the well house doesn’t run so we have to rely on whatever we’ve accumulated before it goes out. Most times we end up dumping out the water because the electricity stays on… but I want to avoid being without.
Meanwhile, I thought we should warn y’all of impending electric “outages”. The situation has much improved over several years ago, but still the geographical reality sometimes trumps my wishes for a horse. There are miles and miles of power lines coming down the mountains. Sometimes the ice load is too much and they fall, or a tree full of ice falls on a few of them or some other trick card Mother Nature has up her sleeve is plonked triumphantly on the table: we lose.
Thanks to the kindness of our donors a few years back, we now stay warm with our gas range/oven no matter what those electric lines do. It’s ever so much nicer to cook with gas than with electricity. But oh my! It is when these Winter Winds howl that the little pilot lights especially warm my heart.
All of which is to say if we lose our connection, we lose our water and we lose our ability to let in comments. Wish we had a gas-generated computer back-up (joke!).
I’m not too concerned: the temperatures are steadily rising though as night moves in, that rise will slow a bit. But… tomorrow it will be in the 50s here (Fahrenheit. Y’all check the Centigrade, please). Looking ahead, there is no sign of snow until this time next week. Compared to large sections of the continent we are most fortunate.
And to think that if Nicola Tesla’s free electricity had not been compromised by some greedy Bankers we wouldn’t be reliant on poles and wires for our ‘energy’.
28 C here, that is 80F for those on the old money. 70% humidity with occasional rain from the petering out cyclone up the Far East Coast in Queensland. I think I bear the heat better than all that sneet and snow. Brrrrrrrr!
If it’s any help, Dymphna:
F = 1.8C + 32; hence C = F – 32/1.8 = 50 – 32/1.8 = 18/1.8 = 10 (C)
Here in middle England it’s been -2C during the night and now 0C, 32F, weak sun and beginning to thaw.
Some slight signs of spring in the offing with my Dafs not long off bursting out and the first, faint signs of a green haze showing in the more sheltered hedgerows.
Still, open fire still on in the Pub and Sunday Lunch there only a few hours away so its far from bad. Good luck at your end, yours can’t be that far behind.
In the northeast U.S. these past two week, we have been enjoying sub-zero temperature (that’s 0 F = -18 C). Thank you, Al Gore, for so reducing your carbon footprint as to give us relief from Global Warming.
Here at 56 degrees north, spring flowers are everywhere – I hope that’ll be the case in Virginia soon as well. Stay warm, stay well!
I try to remember an event that happens every year at about this time. “PITCHERS AND CATCHERS REPORT TO SPRING TRAINING IN FLORIDA AND ARIZONA ON MONDAY.”
Even those who have more important things to think about should mark this on their calender, because the robins won’t be far behind.
Johann von Judenlieber
Ah, Judenlieber…you’re just trying to keep your courage up as you contemplate all that snow. I saw some bluejays today, sitting on our dead mimosa, looking mighty hungry. I can’t feed ’em – my seeding would be too unpredictable and the bears would break anything I put up. So I’m considering planting some bushes that bear seed thru the winter. Seeds the deer don’t like. There is plenty in the summer…not so much in February.
I checked. They’ll eat holly berries and dogwood. Whew. We have dogwoods all through our trees. And I noticed two NEW holly trees, about yea high, at the edge of the woods. Early times for berries, but in a few years…
Did I hear Al Gore is linking the rise of Jihadist groups internationally to “Climate Change”?