Phenology: Pris on Snow Schedule

Well, the big ice/snow storm and freeze is moving in. I heard just a few minutes of bird songs this morning, in between sprinkles of rain. As I walked into town the rain began to change to sleet, stopped dripping and started forming slush ice on my umbrella, and during the last block or two the road became slippery. If I hadn't left my phone in town overnight I would've called to say I wasn't leaving my warm house.

As things are, I plan to stay here until 1 p.m. and go home. Unless the weather changes suddenly, or unless the electricity goes out at home, I plan to spend the rest of the week at home.

There are some people in Clinchport and Duffield to whom I owe favors. It is possible that some of those people might prefer to shelter in three very cold, dark, dusty, musty, cluttered rooms, with wood heat and bottled water, rather than crowd into the public schools with all the mod. con. If so, they need to confirm by e-mail or Twitter before 1 p.m. They will need to walk up a long, steep, icy private road at best. Cell phone service at the Cat Sanctuary seems to work about 50% of the time, off and on, with no guarantees.

If the snow is heavy enough and the power goes out, I may evacuate myself--possibly to Kingsport. If I have to go to Kingsport, I'll go on foot. If anyone is desperate enough to have come to the Cat Sanctuary, the place where I'll go will probably have room for them too, always assuming that that house still has heat and light. My plans rely on the fact that it's safer to walk than to drive in snow; friends from Clinchport and Duffield should bear this in mind.

Anyone planning to leave their home should get out NOW--before the black ice that's starting to form is covered in snow. I'd stay as long as possible and recommend that others do likewise, but if water is in your basement now, it's likely to get higher before it gets lower.

Phenology: In Alaska, Thaw Begins

While some people near the Cat Sanctuary think 38-degree nights are cold, and I revel in mornings full of redbud, dogwood, buttercups, dandelions, daffodils, vincas, forsythia, and other flowers before insects become active...in Alaska, they're still revelling in the first hope that some of that snow is going to melt.

http://laylalawlor.livejournal.com/224147.html

Thanks to Elizabeth Barrette for the link.

Phenology: Snow or No Snow

Wow! Where is everybody? The computer shows readership is down by 30%. No barrage of indignant e-mails, though--in fact, hardly any e-mails at all. Right, I did come to the computer center on a Saturday morning in order to add a sort of apology to something I wrote sincerely but in haste yesterday...but the computer also suggests that that's not the problem. The computer suggests that youall just aren't online.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/09/northeast-blizzard-dumps-two-feet-of-snow-and-its-still-falling-see-the-overnight-pics/

In New York and New England, 600,000 people are without electricity, because that snowstorm arrived on schedule and was just as big and as bad as the Weather Channel said it was going to be. (If you read Liz Klimas's post linked above, or viewed it since it's mostly video clips, you may notice a Weather Channel ad link on the side...and if Grandma Bonnie Peters had not once had a GoDaddy account, we might have one here, too.)

In Virginia, it's sunny, chilly, with a good chance of a warm afternoon, and people are out enjoying the nicest Saturday we've had in weeks. I'll admit I enjoyed the walk to the computer center too.

GBP called last night to check on the rest of our well-being. No worries. By the time the weather up North turned vicious, down here we weren't even getting rain. (Don't hate us, Northern readers--the Weather Channel promised us rain tomorrow.)

In order to maintain "phenology" as the easiest way for search engines to find this blog, I thought about posting fun facts about the blue jays that were flying across the road to the computer center this morning. Maybe that topic can wait. Today's phenology news is Big Snow.

Phenology: Northern States Brace for Big Snow

Actually the Weather Channel's anticipatory hysterics about the approaching snowstorm look as if Canada is going to catch it too, but in the U.S. we have this perception that for Canada no snowstorm could possibly be considered news. Anyway, what's newsworthy about "Snowstorm Nemo" seems to be that it's expected to be a test of what's been done toward rebuilding after "Hurricane Sandy." Snow is not expected to fall in Virginia. Once again, other people get disasters; we get rain.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/08/superstorm-nemo-expected-to-hit-the-northeast-how-bad-could-it-get/

Mike Opelka's article is worth scrolling through for its pictures of a similar storm thirty years ago. Those who remember Michael Dukakis may appreciate a picture of him as a young man...and note what he's not doing.

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/014816.html

Jim Macdonald's article is also worth reading. Hmm. Who are the audience for this post, exactly? Those who resemble then-Governor Dukakis thirty years ago, in a general way--young, strong, thick hair--normally have an instinctive feeling that snow, and snow days, are for going out and doing something with. Such as shovelling snow away from the sidewalks of people who are less active and healthy than we are. Sawing up fallen tree limbs is also fun, and then there's running errands for people who have been advised by their doctors not to go out in the snow. These activities give us an appetite for comfort foods like French Toast.

Since this web site seems to be stuck on the Republican side of things more often, these days, than we really want to be, let's pick up our theme: Fiscal Conservatives, Put Your Back Where Your Mouth Is. A little reminiscence may be in order.

Ten or fifteen years ago, Hyattsville, Maryland, got about two feet of snow. Officially I think it was less than two feet; what I remember is that our back stoop was 34" from the ground, and we couldn't see it out the window at all. My husband probably had multiple myeloma at the time, but hadn't started to feel it yet. Our residential neighborhood outside the city limits was on the third-priority list for official snow assistance efforts. We had, for reasons I never asked him to explain, three snow shovels, so we went out to clear a path. We looked at the street and were able to see tracks where the level of snow was much lower, where people had been driving on the snow. The snow had been compacted but had not yet frozen.  And since we were having fun, we said, "Well, for pity's sake," and started clearing the snow away before it turned into ice.

Both of us already had a few grey hairs here and there, but one is never too old to act childish about snow. By the time I started to feel tired, other people had noticed that fun was being had, and were out with their snow shovels too. We were able to clear the street in front of only three houses. Other people did the rest of the block.

Later the children went out and did creative things with the chunks of packed snow in their yards, but the adults all seemed to feel that we'd put in a day's work and could spend the rest of the day burning fallen oak limbs in our fireplaces, and sipping cocoa, and--if gluten-tolerant, anyway--eating French Toast. (You can buy gluten-free bread that will keep its shape as French Toast, if you really want it to, but personally I'd rather just pop corn.) We did these things all weekend long, with occasional breaks for exercise and snow-inspired childishness.

So then by the time the Washington Post, which we were then receiving on Sundays only, came to the door right on schedule, they'd already received a letter from some slob in some other suburb (name withheld out of compassion for other residents of his neighborhood) whining because, with all the higher priorities on their list, the city had not got a snowplow out to his door yet. Well, in order to have got this letter into a newspaper that had been printed on Saturday, he must have written it in time for the Friday mail. The letter did not mention any disability. For all I know this guy was whining, instead of out having fun like us, because he was spending every minute sitting beside a sick child's artificial respiration device, but he said nothing about it. He presented himself as the metropolitan area's biggest and party-poopinest wimp.

Urban snow thus gives us an opportunity to tell a difference between Real Conservatives and--well, one can't call them liberals--Whiny Wimps...at least up to age 40 or 50. Identification is not always as easy as it looks, because some young people with thick black hair have disabilities that don't show, and that particularly includes the ones who get hung up on their stereotypes about people with thin or white hair. However, as a general rule: Real Conservatives enjoy snowstorms. Wimps whine and wail for someone else to shovel them out.

Eventually, there's no specific cut-off age, at eighty-five Oogesti still has as much fun with snow as anyone else and at twenty-five one of my college buddies (who had rheumatic fever as a child) already had a pacemaker, but most of us are eventually advised by doctors to cut back on having fun with snow. This web site has not forgotten its physically disabled readers. We have now given you three nice snow-related stories to read, and we hope you're having fun...tending your fires, popping corn, making French Toast or fudge or whatever, singing nonsense songs, or perhaps, like Grandma Bonnie Peters, watching the rain fall on the hibiscus buds in Florida.

Phenology: Southerners Think This Is Cold

This web site is frequently read by people in the Northern States, Russia, Canada, and other places that experience serious cold weather. Possibly some of you are in need of a good laugh. If so, here is what in Virginia passes for a snow and freezing weather emergency:

Yes, when I left the library, sleet was beginning to fall. I caught a ride home with someone who thought we had time to stop at a fast-food place (for coffee) as well as the supermarket. Well, I had time to do those things and get out of the car before that sleet turned to big fat fluffy snowflakes. By the time I had walked up the unpaved road to the Cat Sanctuary, that road was covered in snow and ice. I really was concerned about my friend, driving on to her house. She made it safely home though and is back at work.

The snow didn't get more than six inches deep and wasn't blowing about, but Southern roads really are dangerous when there is any kind of snow, ice, or even standing water on them, because Southerners don't get much practice driving in snow and seldom bother about tire chains. Usually one sees abandoned cars where drivers either skidded out of the road or decided to pull over and walk before they skidded, but sometimes situations do manage to become uncomfortable. Later the newspapers reported that in Tennessee two school buses were stranded in the snow, and the children "had to" stay on the buses until they could be "rescued." Those poor, bored, restless kids.

The "Comfort Zone" brand heater from Quillin's Hardware was tested this week, and it performed very well. Along with my home computer and a candle (from Mountain Treasures) it kept the "warm room" so warm that I had to peel off my slippersocks.

The earth walls and floor of the cellar maintain something close to earth temperature all year--call it earth temperature with drafts--and usually the cats prefer the cellar to the house, but by the fourth day of rain they were reporting that the cellar was too wet for comfort. Grayzel likes being indoors. The others behave pretty well indoors, but make it clear that they'd rather be outdoors...except for Iris.

There are actually two distinct things going on with Iris. She's still fighting rhinotracheitis, and cold and damp make it harder. She also has a dominant personality. For social cats, this does not mean fighting--people resist believing how friendly and hospitable Iris can be, but she has positively ordered me to feed visiting cats. Instead it means making lots of little status displays, which include unmistakable attempts to control the human. For the human who is willing to work with this behavior it means that the cat can become a real friend and working partner. If you want to live with this kind of cat, my advice is to let it train you to obey harmless gestures before it starts destroying your clothes and shoes. Iris hears and is learning words; she's also working out commands she can give me. This is making it hard to assess her physical condition. I suspect her of forcing or faking coughs because she's using a cough as a command. She stops coughing when she gets into the warm room.

Fortunately, she's also learned that the sound of typing on the computer is her cue to take a nap, so I was able to get some work done.

Meanwhile, a damp heavy snow weighed down the treetops. People were praying that trees wouldn't break down power lines...and apparently, for most people, they didn't. At the Cat Sanctuary the lights blinked out a few times but never stayed off for more than a minute or two. There was a power outage in town. Some stores had to get rid of frozen food. I hope they found people who were willing to eat it before it went bad.

Overnight lows were around 20 degrees Fahrenheit every night. On Friday the daytime high was only in the low thirties--just at the freezing point--but things that were in the sun began to thaw during the day. I had some bottles of water and soda pop on the porch. They did not freeze over Thursday night; I brought them inside around sundown on Friday.

On Saturday, Sunday, and Monday (a federal holiday) daytime highs were around 40. The ground thawed to slush every day; snow stuck on, not because the ground was cold, but because the ground was saturated with water.

While walking around in the sun, or sitting in the warm room with Iris, I've been quite comfortable in just one layer of thick cotton clothes.

Virginia has seen weather that people further north would recognize as winter, but it doesn't happen every year. One winter overnight lows stayed in the single digits, highs in the teens and twenties, for several days. One winter, about thirty years ago, for just a few hours one night the temperature dived down to twenty degrees below zero (Fahrenheit)--many dead birds and small animals were found on the road the next morning.

But this weekend at the Cat Sanctuary the resident cardinals and visiting chickadees were chasing the insects that were flying around in the daytime...and even while the thermometer was still showing twenty degrees this morning, when I carried the kitten Ivy indoors she nonverbally said, "If you want to groom me or share a special food treat with me, get on with it--I don't want to sit around in this stuffy house all day!"

Oh, the holiday is over. I can go into town and check my e-mail. Must I put on clunky boots? No, it's not cold enough that I have to put on clunky boots. A coat, or a heavy shawl? No, the sun is shining, and if I walk very far in the sun I'll "burn up," which is the local euphemism for perspire, under a coat or shawl. Can I stand at least to wear a sweater? Well...for the first mile I can stand to wear a medium-weight sweater.

Then I get into town, and everyone is still carrying on about how cold it is. I walk into a store, peel off my sweater before it's soaked, and the storekeeper is practically hugging the space heater, which has been moved right up onto the counter, and wailing, "It's not so bad further back in the store, in the fitting room, but here up front it's cold!"

More snow is expected. If prolonged power outages occur I'll be unhappy too; I have a full woodbin and a bag of candles but, now that there are no longer geriatric neighbors who need to be shovelled out, when snow keeps me off the computer I get bored. But I am not going to try to tell readers sitting in the Ukraine that this is cold. This is why numbers are so useful. Overnight lows around 20, daytime highs around 40 degrees Fahrenheit; whether you feel that as warm, cold, or normal-for-the-time-of-year is up to you. I say it's normal for the time of year.