Snow

Fresh Powder

Looks like the 1-2″ of yesterday was joined by at least 3″ more overnight and this morning. So other than dusting the snow off the cars and shoveling snow, I have been hibernating. I’ve been watching episodes of The West Wing and then following it by listening to The West Wing Weekly podcast’s recap of that very show. I’ve watched up to the 19th episode of season 3, or 63 episodes, I still have a little more to go, eighty-nine…

What’s next? A hundred and twenty-one episodes of LOST. Or maybe the 217 episodes of The X-Files? Really, that many? I’ll probably just watch the 40 of them that I saved when I pared it down to one’s I’d rewatch more than once.

Flapping Flag Poles

It snowed this morning and then a little more in the afternoon. What was worse than the snow was the winds. They gusted to over 50 MPH and it actually dislodged the decorative seasonal flag pole on the front porch post. Ripped the 2 wood screws right out and dumped the flag and pole on the ground.

The small American flag on another post was still attached, but it stripped the gear area that held it up at a 45° angle so it drooped to less than horizontal. I think I’ll get another mount for the American flag and maybe just leave the seasonal flag one off and just donate those flags to Goodwill.

They are calling for some more snow tomorrow morning and then looking out in the future, it seems this may be our last snow of the season. Fingers Crossed.

Yesterday I got my first of two free oil changes on the New Miata. It had a whopping 2500 miles on the odometer. Here is a photo of the car sitting outside the dealer’s service area.

Deja Vu All Over Again Again

Didn’t we just go through this? I thought we left snow behind in Louisiana, today while at the gym it started snowing, by the time we got back to Casa de Sally it had started to stick. Snow here in Santa Fe is more of a regular event than in Louisiana and the 1″ or so that fell here is a no big thing.

Later on in the afternoon I said, “I’m going to get an aspirin, my back feels a little tight. Probably from using the rowing machine.” Her response was, “Why don’t you try and stretch it out?” And probably for the second or third time I’ve said to her in the last three and a half weeks, “I don’t believe in it, Have you ever seen a lion stretch before taking down a gazelle?” I figure it was probably time to let her knew what I was referencing:

This led me down the Zombieland memory lane, as I remember being pretty fixated on the movie back when it first came on DVD. One post that was unearthed references the movie this way; “All and all, it would have been preferable to have watched Zombieland than Easy A, but Donna couldn’t sit through the gory parts of MNFMTMWHS.”

What that acronym means is lost to history, because I used to have a plugin for this blog that would show you the meaning of what those letters were, but it was never updated to work on newer versions WordPress. My best guess as to what the first 5 letters are is My New Favorite Movie That. What the MWHS part is, no clue.

2002 All Over Again?

I started blogging in January of 2002 and if I remember right the first few posts I wrote back then were about the cold weather in Aiken, so here is a throw back to those early days:

Last weekend we had some uncharacteristic weather for Portland, snow. Maybe an inch with two inch drifts, we really didn’t need to go anywhere, so we didn’t. The Mini would not have had a problem in it. I kept the snow tires we bought for Klamath Falls living and mounted them on the car back in December. But, the chance of finding another driver out there with something other than all-seasons and snow driving experience were pretty slim, so we stayed at home. Along with that snow came bitter cold and then a couple days later on Tuesday we got freezing rain which continued all the way through Thursday morning.

Yesterday the high, for the first time in nearly a week, made it a couple degrees above freezing. Today, Friday, we made it to around 35 and actually got some melting. Tomorrow, hopefully it will actually get to the predicted 41° and maybe we can get out and do some grocery shopping.

Spring Snow

When we arrived back home last Sunday it was snowing or freezing raining. That type of weather kept up for literally the next three days. But the ground was already too warm for it to accumulate. The only place it did stick was on the grass and even there it didn’t stay around long because the daytime temps were above freezing.

The winds and temps kept us inside and shaking our heads. Talk to the folks who’ve lived here all their lives, or at least for more than the time we’ve been here, this is a pretty typical weather behavior for early April…

To the left is what the CX-5 looked like when we got up Monday morning. This was the day we needed to return it back to Enterprise, so during a brief respite from the snow/rain I went outside to clean it off. Donna was to follow me there in the Mini, but 2 weeks of sitting still in the garage sapped the battery just enough that it wouldn’t start. I guess I left the battery tender on the wrong car. Fortunately Enterprise’s slogan of “We’ll Pick You Up” applies on the other end as well, so I returned the car and a rep drove me back to our house.

Weekend Wrap

On Black Friday, we, along with quite a few Klamath Fallsians, went shopping. And while most everyone else was looking for bargains at all the retail stores, we went to Fred Meyers to do our usual weekly grocery shopping.

On Small Business Saturday we walked the mile and a quarter into downtown. Not really to shop though. We had purchased some advanced tickets to participate in the city’s Annual Chocolate Walk, a fund raiser for the Disabled American Veterans organization. A total of 30 downtown businesses were participating. After getting our wrist bands we visited a couple of places on the way to the furthest spot and the place we were going to have lunch.

That out of the way, we started the trek of visiting as many of the 30 businesses as we could to collect chocolate treats. A few places were handing out just store bought chocolate candy and we certainly didn’t turn any of it down. The businesses are in competition to be voted best treat and some places go above and beyond to make some delicious homemade treats, this the real draw. The both of us agreed that the fresh made truffles offered by an Avon store were the best of the best. Some of the other yummy treats included several barks from pretzel to peppermint, fudge, popcorn covered with white chocolate and a thick drink made with heavy cream and shaved Italian chocolate. Oh my. Felt like trick or treating for adults.

We visited several businesses that we never knew were there. A few of which we will be returning to for any help we need for decorating our new house once we are in it. About two thirds of the way through we stopped eating the chocolate treats and started putting them in the small paper bag they gave us at the start. For various minor reasons we missed just 4 places.

Along with the Chocolate Walk there were 15 places doing something called Shop Small, several of which were on the walk too. For every $10 you spent you received a raffle ticket to be entered into a drawing for several prizes ranging from gift baskets to a seven day trip. We ended up with just 4 entries, which pales in comparison to the 2 folks who stopped into the bike store and bought high-end bicycles netting then over 200 entries…

As we walked back up the hill to our rental spot the weather turned much cloudier and cooler. And after changing into comfy clothes, we looked out the window and were treated to a windy white out of snow. By sundown we ended up with about an inch of the white stuff that covered up everything we had shoveled off on Wednesday.

On Football Sunday, where we typically watch 3 NFL games back to back to back, before we even got to the early game we had to go outside in the snow and do some cleanup. Yesterday’s 1″ of snow was followed up by another 2″ overnight. Donna started by shoveling off the sidewalks and a path to the Mini and then I took over by sweeping snow off the car and cleaning up our make-shift driveway to the street.

Donna looked at me during this and said, “I’m still not as tired of doing this as I was raking leaves in Aiken.” To which I replied, “I don’t remember complaining about raking leaves for the first few years we lived there. Give it time.”

More than likely all this snow will be gone before the end of this coming week anyway, after tonight’s upper 20s low it is supposed to be above freezing, even at night, until next Sunday.

February’s Average Snowfall Total

From yesterday morning to this afternoon we had snow fall in the amount the equivalent of February’s total average snowfall – 6 inches – in November.

Shortly after it started we took a small drive downtown just to see what was what and to check our mail at the Post Office. It had barely started to accumulate, maybe an 1/8″, but the roads were getting pretty slick. We came home and parked the Mini. The photo above is what it looked like 24 hours later. And now 12 hours later it still sits there unmoved.

We did go out and spend an hour shoveling a path to the car to brush off the snow covering it. Because it is parked on grass we also shoveled off a path to the street down to about an inch or so to allow me to back out if needed. I hope it is not needed though, the roads have been packed down to a super dense icy consistency. The high performance all season tires on the Mini would be able to handle a little bit of snow on the grass okay, but the roadway, not so much. Looks like a set of dedicated snow tires is in our future…