Flashback Friday

We got hit with a good snowstorm on December 2, 2006. This was in Shorewood. As you can see, John and Allie thought it was quite fun. 

 

It Snowed!

We were all happy to see a beautiful snowfall on Saturday night. We only got five or six inches, but since we haven't had that much snow all year, we welcomed it with open arms.

I found one of our missing cameras, so now I can get some so-so pictures of the birds at the feeder - not great but better than I can get on my phone from that distance. On the right (with a yellow belly) is one of our large red-headed woodpeckers.

Last summer we bought this squirrel-proof feeder called the Yankee Flipper. It works great and try as they might (they've stopped trying) the squirrels can't get at the food inside. Now that we know that the squirrels aren't eating the bird food, we've figured out that the birds are PIGS. The feeder holds five pounds of food and they go through it in just a few days.

While I took pictures from inside the warm and dry kitchen, Allie kept a keen eye out for squirrels. They stayed clear of the yard yesterday. But if they had shown up, she would gladly have chased them.

After taking some bird pictures, Allie and I played fetch in the backyard.

Meanwhile, Brad cleared the driveway and sidewalk of snow. People in St. Louis seem to prefer a "wait and see" attitude toward snow removal (as it "let's wait and see if the sun eventually melts it") so for the first time in our cold weather lives I can honestly say we're winning the neighborhood snow removal competition (which only exists in our minds but please let us enjoy our victory).

And then of course there was time for more playing in the snow. (But as you might guess there's never enough time for playing in the snow if you're Allie.)

Flashback Friday

In February of 2002 we went skiing for the first time in Zakopane, Poland. Mary's specialty quickly became skiing into the parking lot at the base of one of the slopes. After all these years, I've finally figured out why - with her hat pulled down so far she couldn't see!

Flashback Friday

Warning: slight rant ahead. With winter comes snow and cold. (At least where we live it does.) Most years there'll be a time or two when a lot of snow arrives and/or it gets really really cold, and it's all people can talk about. (Me included.) But it's winter no matter how you slice it, so it's going to snow and it's going to get cold and sometimes (right about now) I get sick of the weather being such a topic of conversation. (End of rant.) In the early days of 1994 in Racine we had a lot of snow (as you can see) and it was cold. (Well, maybe not so cold to John - who didn't see the need to cover his hands.) In other words, it was winter. And it was a perfect time to build a snow hill in the backyard and slide down it if you were a little boy playing with his brother.

Weather Report

Did you hear about the unprecedented weather here in St. Louis this week? In case you were living under a rock, let me fill you in. For the first time in recorded history, there was a tidal wave (yes, a TIDAL WAVE!) in Missouri - all caused by John discovering the existence of the above young man. The person in the picture is the Florida State ball boy - a "scruffy redhead" nicknamed Red Lightning. When John became aware of this boy's existence during the national championship game on Monday night, well, that's when (as you can well imagine) the tidal wave hit. I believe the subject line of John's email's was "How Could You Not Tell Me About My Twin Brother?" Never mind that the ball boy is 21 and John is 23 …..

In other news, we got a bit of snow and cold this week. This is Allie watching the snow fall on Sunday. We got just under a foot. It's a lot for St. Louis (so we're told).

Like in so many places, the following day our temperatures dropped like a rock. The absolute temperature hovered around zero all day and night. I think it got close to -10 at the coldest, plus add a wind chill and it was downright bitter. We had to snow blow our new house and also our rental house (which we still lease). This is Brad's handiwork at the rental house. The cold weather brought with it all sorts of delights - Troy missed her first day of work at her new job due when the office closed on Monday; Troy's parents' move to Vietnam (more on that tomorrow) got delayed by a day and they almost didn't make their flight; Brad's office was closed on Monday but John had to go into work (once he shoveled his car out from being plowed in) and then his car got stuck at work overnight as the parking lot wasn't plowed; then the next day John's car got a flat tire at work and he had to wait seven hours for a tow truck; as late as Wednesday John had to push Troy's car out of her parking spot since the city barely plowed in Soulard; we had a water pipe burst on Tuesday night; and also that night our furnace started smelling really funny so now we know the furnace repair guy a bit better - I'm sure there's more to report but I think you get the idea …..

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like .....

..... spring?

Winter At Last

Saint Louis is pretty much shut down with today's snow-sleet downpour. John just drove home from work and reported that there's more than four inches on the road and none of it's been plowed - not even on the freeway. Brady's company shut down before noon. It's a good day to be safe at home.

A Nor'easter Means It's Winter

There's never a dull moment around here. Today's excitement is a Nor'easter that is dumping lots of big wet snowflakes on us and blowing all over the place. This was the scene at lunchtime today when I was in town as the storm was beginning.

After lunch I went to the grocery store, and by then things were starting to get nasty outside. Inside the store I learned that the ground turkey I had intended to buy was not to be had, a carryover from ..... whodathunkit ..... last week's hurricane! (They're expecting their first ground turkey shipment since the hurricane tomorrow; weather permitting no doubt.) I scrapped the dinner plan for turkey chili, so we'll have beef chili instead.

This is how the garden looked when I pulled into the driveway.

And this is the back deck a few minutes ago. It's still coming down. Total accumulation is only supposed to be a few inches. But ..... schools let out early today and I wouldn't be surprised if they cancel tomorrow too.  Welcome winter!

Tracking Deer

This morning I didn't have time to walk Allie in town, so I put her on the leash and we walked around the yard, outside her fence. With Saturday's freshly fallen snow still quite fresh, we were able to see all the deer tracks.

I don't know if Allie actually saw any of the deer tracks, but she definitely sniffed them.

The deer apparently help themselves to our yard when we're not around. I don't think she missed any of the tracks either.

Meanwhile, I got a different view of things, as I'm not usually tromping around the yard in the winter.

The garden looks especially still now that we have snow on the ground.

80 Inches and Counting

With 80 inches of snow so far this winter, we were glad to be spared from the brunt of this week's storms. We got some ice, but only about four inches of snow overall, and no sub-zero temperatures and no gale force wind. Which is a good thing because we already have plenty of snow.  This morning while walking Allie I was noticing how much snow we have. These pictures are of four different park benches that we walk past each morning. As you can see, there's no place to sit for quite a long time.

Roof Rage

Two days ago I broke our new roof rake in the snow. Today we found staining on some of our ceilings. (With so much ice, it's a slam dunk case as to what caused it.) Now it's time to get more weapons to fight this ice monster.  First purchase today:  new roof rake.  (Though it's unuseable while the snow is so icey.)

Second purchase:  the hardware store claims these pucks help to melt the ice on the roof.  It's an understatement to say they're rather toxic.  As hard as we tried to garden organically last year, this is an about-face.  But you know what they say about desperate times . . . . .

Brad tossed 120 of the pucks onto various parts of our roof.  I think he would admit it was kind of fun. Fortunately, the temperature was in the low 30s and we had no wind.  (You might notice the attractive yellow Playtex gloves he's wearing.  That was so he didn't ruin a good pair of regular gloves due to all the chemicals in the pucks.)

Our next line of defense are these old stockings that I filled with ice melt.  That's one hanging over a major trouble spot.  I just learned about these the other day.  The idea is that the ice melt inside will create a trough for the water to flow through.  The only difficult part is positioning them after you toss them on the roof.  (No way can we use a ladder.)  See how the ice from the higher roof creates a continuous ice dam down to the lower roof?  That's the kind of stuff we're dealing with.

Two more ice stockings in a trouble spot in the back roof.  That's solid ice you're looking at, so I am expecting that it is wishful thinking that they'll do any good.  We'll have to see . . . .

Brad in the front yard tossing pucks.  See how deep the snow is?  The snow is so hard that it's probably deeper than that.  With the icey precipitation we got overnight, the snow is crispy.

This snow is high from snow blowing.  That's Allie, standing on the fence next to the driveway.  She can go right over the top as the snow has completely covered the fence.

I have to admit, even though this weather is causing frustrating problems for us with our house, I'm not sick of winter yet.  So this is not a "spring is just around the corner" photo.  Rather, it is to share my amazement that the rhododendron exist all winter fully exposed, that these leaves pop back to life in the spring, and these buds turn into beautiful flowers.  To me it's miraculous.

More Winter Craziness

Lots of people around here have icicles like we do.  While they're pretty, as I'm sure you know, they're also pretty awful for gutters and roofs.  We are told this is a very unusual year.  (With 72 inches of snow and counting, I tend to believe it.)  As a result, people are trying all sorts of ways to get the snow off their roofs.  Driving around, it isn't difficult to spot a house with people on the roof shoveling the snow off.  This morning, we even saw some guys up on the roof of an antique store with - and I am totally serious - a snow blower!  The newspaper has an article a few times a week about the problems all this snow is causing.  The worst include a photo of a house or business whose roof (usually a flat roof) has collapsed under the weight of the snow.  So, what to do?  Well, since you asked, the simplest maintenance solution of choice for this problem seems to be  . . . .

. . . . . our newest purchase:  the roof rake.  We had never heard of this device before, but I don't think it's too much of an exaggeration to say they are the hottest product in Connecticut these days.  Yesterday I went to four hardware stores looking for them.  I got the same story at each place:  "Today we got in a shipment of [depending on the store, anywhere from 80-300] and they're all sold out.  But we'll be getting in our next shipment next week."  This morning we went back to the hardware stores to put our name in so we could get one from the upcoming shipment, and we lucked out when one of them told us that they had three that had just become available.  So we snapped one up and came home to endure a shoulder workout like no other.  (Well, Brad did most of it, but having helped a little I can at least attest to the shoulder and upper arm agony involved in using the roof rake.)

The roof rake and the roof raker in action.

A roof with less snow is a beautiful sight to see.

Our snow dog, cheerleader, concerned observer, and icicle eater.  (We were knocking icicles down and you can see that she grabbed a chunk of one and it's between her paws.)

Life in Our Snow Globe and Some Lessons

It's no news flash, but we got more snow overnight.  How much?  Around a foot.  We lost power for most of the night too.  No school again today.  But Mary wasn't going anyway, so it all worked out.  She is at a Model United Nations conference in Boston for the next four days.  So today's snow day was another one that cooperated with her schedule!  Even though she didn't have school, in the spirit of education, I decided that in this post I would share with you some of the things we learned today.

Today's first lesson:  don't believe everything you read.  The internet said Mary's train from New Haven to Boston would be running 36 minutes late.  I called Amtrak and their automated system confirmed this.  But here is Mary on her way OUT of the station.  After we arrived we were told that all trains were cancelled and there wouldn't be a train to Boston for an untold number of hours.  So instead, we took to the open highway.

It was a pretty messy highway.  The snow stopped before dawn, but there was so much of it still on the road and with the sun shining brightly and temperatures in the 30s, there was a nonstop shower/spray from other vehicles on the road for our first 100 miles.  It was nasty.  At one of the service stations on the Massachusetts Turnpike, I decided it was time for the today's second lesson:  teach Mary how to refill the wiper fluid.  She is laughing because I got out my camera to record the moment.

Today's third lesson:  the girl can be taught!

John gets credit for the brilliant idea that I drop Mary off on the side of the road.  Yes, you read that right.  You see, while the freeways were pretty clear, we weren't so sure how things would be in downtown Boston.  With so many narrow streets, many of them one-way, probably not perfectly plowed (yet), and with a fairly wimpy winter car, John (on his way to class) called us with the idea that I drop Mary off at a subway stop that's right off the highway (and not too far from Tufts, which is how I know where it is).  Today's fourth lesson:  listen to John.  His plan was brilliant.  Here is Mary at Alewife Station, ready to hop on the T and head over to the conference in downtown Boston.  (She got there just fine, by the way.)  She is at the conference until Sunday, when she will (fingers crossed) take the train home.  She's meeting up with the Shorewood delegation, whose flight was delayed due to our weather, so they're arriving early this evening.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, this is the stairs and railing that go from our driveway up to the path that leads to our front door.  Needless to say, they're not being used at this time.

Our mailbox, now completely snowed in.  (By the way, for the safety conscious among you, right after I took this picture I carved some of the snow away so our house number on the mailbox shows again.)

I don't know if this picture gives you the perspective to see how much snow is in our front yard.  We rarely use our front door to begin with, but choosing not to shovel the front walk for just one of our many snowfalls led to this "there's no turning back now" scenario.  We won't see our front walkway again until spring.  Today's fifth lesson:  snow accumulates.

Again trying to give some perspective.  This is the sliding door from our bedroom to the deck.  (In case you're wondering, no, we don't normally keep the door open in winter.)  I think you can see how high the snow is.  That path is Allie's.  Brad shoveled her a path after the last snowfall, but as you can see it is no longer.  I'm sure he'll dig her another one over the weekend.



If It's Tuesday, It Must Be a Snow Day

Today's weather:  ice.  Today's school day:  cancelled.  Again.  (Mary had snow days last week on Wednesday and Thursday.  Then a late start day on Friday.  Yesterday was a holiday.  And no school today.  At this rate, things could turn into a "I'll never get out of high school" nightmare.)

Brad using his new toy to clear a bit of snow so we could take my car in for servicing this morning.  We aren't going to get a lot of snow today, but the sleet keeps coming down.  Thankfully, the roads were well salted and sanded overnight.