Sunday, December 6, 2009

Snow!

I got up this morning, built the fire, made my wife and I a cup of coffee. Made some bacon eggs and pancakes for breakfast. I checked outside to see what the weather was doing. The sun was shining brightly, it was 30 degrees with frost on the ground. I knew that we had a special fire drill at 9:00 AM, so I was pleased to see the Sun. I turned on the news while I was getting ready to go to the drill. I started to go out the door and the air was filled with the lightest, fluffiest, airy snowflakes that I've ever seen. They were coming down in exceptionally slow motion.



On my way the the truck I came upon a spider web strung from my truck to the house. The web had collected a chain of the little fluffy snowflakes. Like mother nature saying “Do not pass”. I hesitated, then moved on. I had a little trouble destroying the beauty of the moment, but like so many of the wonders of nature, I realized that it was a fleeting moment, and would soon pass all on it's own.

We drilled on fire suppressant foam application and I came back home about noon. I fixed the kitchen faucet while my wife worked in “her hobby room” downstairs. About 3:00 PM, it started snowing again. It was a real light airy hail. Not the rattling bouncy kind, but the stuff that makes a hissing noise as it lands. My wife, and old snow skier, calls it “Corn Snow”. We had about ½” of it and it stuck real good. Now it looks like it's going to freeze tonight.

If you are going anywhere be careful, it might be slippery.

Did it snow where you are?

40 comments:

JB said...

Not snowing at the moment, but 1" of snow on the ground and 26 degrees at 2300 feet on Windy Gap. Thank the lord for dry firewood and Ernie Branscomb for a working furnace as backup! Drive carefully and watch those exposed water pipes overnight. Time to hunker down and enjoy the warmth of family and home until the sun comes out again.

Lodahl Art Works said...

Ernie, it was 7 degrees at 5:30 am here in Northwest Washington. Wind chill about 10 below. Hurts when it hits your face. I love our woodstove we use for main heat. Comforting even more when you hear on the news, some 3200 people in Idaho are out of power. They found some older man in his home near hypothermia. Made me think about our neighbors. I need to make some calls to let them know they can come over if necessary or I will come get them.
I hate to think about leaving here in about an hour. Thank goodness hubbie put the "heater" on the engine of the car. I am so spoiled. :-)

ImBlogCrazy said...

I'm disappointed. Tom Seaborn's blog hinted that we might get some snow on the coast this morning...

It didn't happen. I was looking forward to taking a walk with my pug in the snow, and taking photos.

Oh well...

Ernie Branscomb said...

The 1/2" inch of snow that we got in Benbow half melted and refroze overnight.

Now I'm sorry that I made fun of Al Gore. He's put a hex on me.

Rose said...

I'm jealous! Snow! Yay!

BTW - have you heard good ol' Al complaining about the Copenhagen climate summit: 1,200 limos, 140 private planes and caviar wedges - Spews More CO2 than 60 Countries do in Entire Year -- COMBINED...

Anonymous said...

The rich do everything in style dahling...even "saving" the planet.

Anonymous said...

My step-father used to tell me how on a cold morning like today he would have to warm up his engine by urinating on the carburater of his Model T. Any of you whippersnappers old enough to remember those days?!

spyrock said...

more than a foot of snow up at doves. matt said a mountain lion came walking by the house through the snow. the neighbor called and said it was coming our way.
i was at work driving a forklift for 8 hours in the icy rain. a little hail, the coldest day so far this year.

Ben said...

We drove to Ukiah yesterday (Sunday) ad hit some sleet around Piercy, a little more at the Covelo turnoff. We came home earlier than iusual worried about the road and had an easy trip. Cal Trans had done a fine job sanding. 27 at Laytonville, colder than Willits, then it warmed up to 33 or so when we got home. Tonight (10PM) it's already 27 here and it's going to be cold!

Fred Mangels said...

22 in Eureka when I turned on the computer this morning around 5:30.

Anonymous said...

0° here at White Swan, WA.

Oregon

Ernie Branscomb said...

Janis went out to get in her car this morning and the windshield was frozen. She started the car and waited a little bit, then decided to throw some water on it. It froze like a sheet of ice. She decided to just wait for it to warm up.

I feel sorry for the folks up in Washington. But, they know better than to throw water on a frozen windshield.

It hss only been this cold two or three times since the "Ice Age" of the 70's.

Ernie Branscomb said...

Oregon
You are pretty smart with your fancy little ° sign. How do you do that again? I just copied and pasted yours.

Ernie Branscomb said...

Just for the record it was 28° here Monday morning and it was 22° Tuesday. (Today)

Ernie Branscomb said...

More precisely, it was 22° Fahrenheit.
Or, -5.5555° Celsius.
Or, 267° Kelvin
Or, -4.8° Reaumur
Or, 480.6° Rankine
Or, several million degrees below freezing AlGore.

Anonymous said...

When the sun came up this morning I could see my truck and the hood and the top of the cab was frosted over but the windshield is clear. Figure that one out. Yesterday I decided to go to town about 2:30 PM and the sun was shinning into the ol' truck and my water bottle was still froze.

Put a number on the screen like a zero or a 12, Any number will do, then push and hold the Alt key down while typing 2 4 8 in that order but it has to be on the little key pad on the right of the keyboard°.
FYI to you folks in Humboldt that do not watch Fox News like I do, this morning Hayfork was there. Yep!! Right there on the national news.

Oregon

Anonymous said...

More FYI. I played with the number keypad on the right side of the keyboard while holding down the Alt key and found lots of neat stuff. With all the smart folks that read your blog Ernie, I bet they could write a book so people like me could get it and look up a formula without messin' up their PC's.

Oregon

Ekovox said...

Join me! I moved into town like the county officials have been instructing us to do and I live in the comfort of the city high life. No more woodstoves, no more firewood, no more dealing with the elements.

I remember having a talk with my father when I was around 15 while growing up with the rural mountain ways. I wanted to move into town where I could experience bookstores and libraries and colleges and coffee houses and movie theaters and nightclubs and shopping not being an hour drive away. Pappy said, "Son, then you had better learn a skill that keeps you away from manual labor and dealing with the elements." I did and I have. And so should you. Come on now, your resistence is futile.

You rural folks should be ashamed of yourselves for burning your highly toxic woodstoves, cutting down trees for firewood and running your deadly diesel pickups to bring it in.

Join us! We have a nice community where everything is connected via trials, the government has issued bicycles for everyone, city busses run on the hour and your food source is only a city block or two away. For exercise and spirituality needs, we have kayaks for your bay-gliding pleasures. No more need to take your ATV up into the woods or to take a hike on "your" property.

Join us! You are all welcome to live next door to me and all of our neighbors in county-approved housing.

Oh, best of all, you'll never have to deal with snow ever again.

Ernie Branscomb said...

Oregon

╕°♦♣♠☺☻☻♣◘☻♦♀☺☻╕°

I see what you mean.

What happened in Hayfork???
Did they build a new sawmill???

Aunt Janet said...

Ekovox said:"your food source is only a city block or two away." So, you have a farm a couple of city blocks away, do you? I'd like to see that.
As a farmer who grows most of our own food, and feed others as well, I resent the notion that the grocery store or restaurant are your "food source". I would have more respect for the "live in the city" way if more of you city folk would grow food, not lawns and decor.
So, back atcha, join me, grow food, city or rural.

Anonymous said...

I just wrote a big thingy about what happened in Hayfork and it didn't show up here. I even typed the silly word I couldn't pronouce to boot.

Oregon

Anonymous said...

Hayfork. The Fox news flash is about growing pot. That just goes to show ya that Fox is way behind the times. LOL

Oregon

Fred Mangels said...

Speaking of frost on car windows, anyone ever had this happen? It's happened to me maybe 3 times since I've lived up here:

You go out to your car on a freezing cold morning. As expected the outside of the windows are frosted but, when you get inside, the inside of the front window is frosted, too.

It really sucks since you can't hose down the inside of the window. You just have to either wait until it gets warm outside or turn the engine on and wait for the defroster to do its thing. Even with the defroster, though, the water beads up on the inside and runs down on to the dashboard.

Really a bummer when that happens as there's no easy way to clean up the inside of the window.

Anonymous said...

I think Aunt Janet is right to a point. In my mind, I think when it comes down to tougher times and the local farms might not be enough, it is time to move up. I see on TV they promote buying gold but I can't see how that helps. I think some watch to many western movies and think if they have gold they can buy stuff. I say buy bullets. Who would ever guess that you can buy a box of 20 30/30 bullets for $12:00 and trade one bullet for a steak dinner. That's just in the near future, think what a bullet will be worth in 2017! I say buy some fish hooks and stock up on bullets. That will make Browns Sporting Goods happy and may save your life. Oh yeah, y'all might want to to stock up on some beans and salt. Not the iodized salt if you are going to salt and smoke the salmon and make jerkey.

Oregon

Anonymous said...

Dang Fred, who ever said y'all can't hose the inside of a windshield?
A little inside tip Fred, get married, the woman can put another log on the fire and hose the windshield.

Oregon

Ernie Branscomb said...

Aunt Janet
If you knew Ekovox a little bit better you would know that he is lamenting the loss of "the life left behind".

He does that tongue-in-cheek thing every now and then just to stir up us country hicks.

Anonymous said...

WOODY: Hey Mr. Peterson, Jack Frost been nipping at your nose?

NORM : Yep. Now let's get Joe Beer nipping at my liver, huh?

Anonymous said...

Ernie and Aunt Janet,
I would like to put into perpective about what I think Ernie was saying about Ekovox and a life left behind.
I was down to the Kyel's Corner Monday last and run into the only person I know in this valley I won't bore you with why I ended up there but I did need fuel. Anyway, Joe was telling me he and his wife went to his grandparents the day before and I guess it wern't a purty picture. The night before, a Saturday night it was open vat night at the local saloon as it seems. Anyway, I guess when Grandpa gits to drinking he talks politiks. Well he and Granny got into and argument and when they got home it went right into a big fight. Granny hit Grandpa with the cat and broke his hearin' aid, Grandpa's, not the cat. It all comes down to Grandpa never forgot about Granny votin' fer FRR.

Oregon

Anonymous said...

FDR*
Oregon

Ekovox said...

Aunt Janet and Ernie,

We town residents work in cubicles in government agency buildings, when would we ever have the ability to "grow" our food. You expect us to till up our little 20'x 20' backyard oasis to plant row crops? Where would we put our redwood deck and our hot tub?

Oh, you mean food like you might find at those farmer's market deals who are always in the middle of the street when I drive to the post office to get my mail. No thank you, the corner Safeway Superstore has everything I need in the way of comestibles. Plus, it all comes in neat packages that allure me to buy it, not like that local produce and what not grown by our local mountain people.
Eating what you grow...what a novel concept. Does that kind of thing still happen?

Oh, and firewood? I just get mine off of that guy who has it fore sale in town. I'm not like you folks who think nothing of running up into the woods with your big old pick up trucks and burn it for actual heat...no, I only use it a couple times per year in my decorated fireplace, mostly for the holidays. Cutting your own firewood, how quaint. I have to go now, my 60-inch plasma television screen beckons with dancing Hollywood stars...wow, what a great show.

\ said...

the little zero trick is one cewl thingy --but 'the cat and the hearing aid' story is shear genious

Anonymous said...

Ekovox, I drive to the post office, it is 12 miles from my place.
You just keep writing and I will keep reading. You make me smile.

Oregon

P.S. I hope this goes through, I can't understand the silly words on the varication thingy.

\ said...

60-inch plasma television screen beckons with dancing Hollywood stars

yep, it's called
rockabilly

Anonymous said...

The first cold morning I saw what looked to be a piece of string that had frozen hanging from the lowest branches of a nearby fir. I actually convinced myself that I had thrown a string over the branch in some forgotten moment. On my ride to town I saw another "string" beside the road about four feet long. They were just icycles... the thinnest I have ever seen.

Rose said...

EKOVOX! We miss you.

Bunny said...

On a Mac you get the degree mark by holding down OPTION and hitting the K button. ˚˚˚
There's all kinds of cool little things using the option key.

Ernie, I can't believe how many responses to this thread. Something we can all agree on.

Anonymous said...

There was a time when a bedpan had a different meaning. I grew up with a brass, lidded pan on a long wooden handle standing by the fireplace ...as an ornament.
Of course, earlier generations would put some coals in the pan and warm the bed. Don't see these much anymore. Here I am trying to talk about the ol' days and you folks are playin' computer games....sigh.

Anonymous said...

Anon 6:28
We used to put big rocks in the fire then wrap them in towels and put them at the bottom of our sleeping bags. Works great when the temp. is below 15°.

Oregon

Ernie Branscomb said...

My mom used to put a large brick on top of the wood stove, wrap it up in a towel, put it in a pillow slip and put it in our beds. It would stay warm all night.

Anonymous said...

I had a friend who heated these smoothed green soapstone chunks on his stovetop on cold nights. Any guest would be sent home with a laprock for the cold ride home. He too used them to warm his bed at night.

Thanks for responding fellas!