BLIZZARD CONDITIONS

Snow started about 24 hours ago with wind gust up to forty mph.  I dug out just before dark last night; again at seven this morning and it is still snowing at 4 p.m.  So far we have received about 24 inches.   I will wait until tomorrow morning and dig out again.

I have a hundred-foot +/-  U-shaped drive and it took me about three hours this morning with a snow blower and shovel to clear it.  As fast as I was removing the snow the wind would fill back in behind me and the young man that plows our road would pack the mouth of the drive. 

I just went back out a few minutes ago and had to dig out the vents to my two heaters.   There is nearly a foot of snow to be moved again.

Here are two pictures from my back window and a picture of the back of my house without snow.  As you can see the snow has reached my windows and it is still snowing. 

those views are from the window on the left.  Snow half way up the first pane.

Also a couple of pix from my front kitchen window; before and after.   Much of this snow has piled up from sliding off my metal roof; but I am a tall man and the snow pack is up to my crotch – not including the depths of the drifts. 

viewed from the right window.   Creeping up the window.

  

I have said that I love the winter and I love the snow, but I could use a few days’ break.   We have another storm coming in on Wednesday and Thursday.

I need to haul wood tomorrow from my backyard woodshed to my wood storage structure at my back steps, I also need to rake snow from may shed roofs.  It will have to be done on snowshoes. 

It is all a part of living in rural Maine.

NINE DEGREES AND FORTY MILES PER HOUR WIND IN MAINE TONIGHT

WIND

I am obsessed with the wind

Of all natures children

Of all natures gods

It is the wind that awes me most

I can view the sunrise and sunset

And feel the sun's warmth on my skin,

I can appreciate the eerie light of a full moon

reflected on a snowbound world,

I can see and hear the tumbling water of a stream

And experience the pleasant serenity of a lake.

But it is the wind

I can welcome the soft touch of a snowflake

as it kisses my face,

And shiver as the rain soaks my clothes

and chills my frame,

I can hear thunder 

and startle at the streak of lightning ripping the sky.

But it is the wind that speaks to me.

I have bask at the fire that brings contentment

and warmth to my home,

And choked as my lungs fill with smoke 

as the forest burned away,

I have driven on the ice

on the Kuskokwim River.

But it is the wind

I have seen the northern light

blaze in the twenty-four-hour night,

I have felt the penetrating chill

of the cold at fifty below,

But it is the wind

the wind I remember most.

Huddled in my bed in a tiny log cabin

In the darkness of the never ending Arctic night

While the wind outside, unrelenting, warned me

‘You do not belong here.  This is my world.  I rule here.  Hear me and quake.”

It is the wind

The relentless wind that keeps me awake tonight.

DIFFERENT STROKES

Nan, in her blog All the Good Names Were Taken wrote about the gloom that accompanies the grey, bleak days of winter.

I love these grey days, when there is snow on the ground, there is no color and the world appears in shades of grey, and the wind is blowing creating a wind chill that makes you want to stay inside.  This is the type of day to set no expectations, but to do whatever feels good in the moment.   It is a day for reading, or watching TV, or sleeping, or cooking, or drinking wine, having sex, taking a nap; or all of the above.    On these days nature rules, and we can stay by the fire and let nature have her way. 

Another thing I like about these days is I don’t have to see people.   I am like the badger in Wind and the Willows: “I hate company.”    Actually, I can tolerate company at short intervals; but I always feel other people around too long are and intrusion.     

 I actually don’t mind being alone.   There are times I have relished being alone in the north woods in the winter time.   I have often hunted alone, camped alone and fished alone – always dreading the encroachment of other humans on my privacy.   Those days of chosen isolation are gone now that I am married, and that is a small thing to give up for the love of a woman.  My wife and I have never been separated more than a few days in thirty-five years.  However, we both hate company and value the alone time we spend together.

And what better alone time than a grey mousy day.

the Ol'Buzzard

WHERE THE HELL IS WINTER?

It has been raining all day today and is forecast to rain all day tomorrow.   The rain doesn’t bother me – I actually like being in the house with the rain drumming on our metal roof while I read, sleep or use the computer (retirement is a tough act.)   But the thing that does bother me is the warm temperatures.

   Last year at this time we had day temperatures in the teens and twenties with two feet of snow on the ground and snow events happening about once every week or ten days.   This year there is no snow and the temps have been ten to fifteen degrees above normal all month and the next fifteen-day forecast is predicting more of the same.   When the temperatures are high thirties to mid-forties it is too warm to use the wood stove and so we are using expensive oil to keep house temperatures comfortable.

I miss the snow: I love the snow.   We live in western Maine because we like the four seasons.   We are willing to endure mud season and bug season because we know fall season and winter season are to follow. 

We lived in Florida for a couple of years and there were no markers to changing seasons – I much preferred the twenty-four hours of daylight and twenty-four hours of darkness in arctic Alaska to the monotony of the never ending summer time of Florida weather. 

This is a crazy weather pattern and I hope it doesn't become the norm.

the Ol'Buzzard

  

THE SPIRIT OF LOKI

Here it is, three o-clock in the morning and I am sitting in front of the computer.   Two days ago I came up with Filthy Mc-Nasty throat: hoarse, raspy and flimmy (probably more than you want to know) so I am not sleeping soundly.

Also, being in my seventies I now get up at least twice during the middle of the night to pee.  

As usual, at one-thirty I stumble downstairs to complete my nightly ritual.   On my way back to bed I pass the window and notice that it is totally dark outside: the lights in the well house are not on (the heat from two one hundred watt bulbs connected to a thermostat keep the well house above freezing during the winter.)

We had an unusually warm December, with day temps reaching near forty and night temps just below freezing; but, a cold blast came in from Canada and tonight the temps have dropped to eight below zero – the first below zero night this year.

 

When you live up north and get your water from a drilled well, the prospect of the well head freezing and bursting is the thing nightmares are made of.  

So, on go my long johns, jeans, socks, boots, shirt, vest, heavy jacket, watch cap and gloves – my wife hears me up and brings down my flashlight – and off I go to the well house to replace the bulbs. 

The well house is across the road and about twenty-five yards from the house,    Windblown, over the snowbank, across the ditch I trek – at least the moon is out, reflecting off the snow so I don’t need the flashlight. 

I am the kind of person that does preventive maintenance.  After living in the bush for so many years I prefer to foresee the chance of trouble and address it before it happens.     True to form I had replaced the incandescent lights in the well house in November and sealed the door with weather stripping.   The weather stripping made perfect sense back in November with temps near forty, but now at eight below the weather stripping is frozen and I can’t get the damn door open.  

Back to the house I trek for a screwdriver, then back to the well house.   I tear out the weather stripping with the screwdriver and finally am able to pry the door open.  The interior is cold.  The small electric emergency back-up heater I keep in the well house isn’t working.  (They don’t make incandescent light bulbs any more but two years ago, thinking ahead, I bought six extra.) – I replace the bulbs and then head back to the house to get the back-up, back-up heater.  

Returning to the well house I replace the heater, finally get the door secured but notice light seeping through the crack between the door and the sill; and if light can get out cold air is getting in.   With the flashlight I am now searching through the snow for the scraps of weather stripping that were torn out with the screw driver.   Retrieving a piece here and a piece there I am able to stuff enough stiff frozen Styrofoam around the door to complete a seal.  

Finally, back at home I undress, add a log to the woodstove, lie down and start coughing. 

 Fuck-it; I’ll get up, get a glass of apple juice and turn on the computer.

So here I am.  

Do you believe in mischievous imps or fairies, brownies, sprites, elves or pooksa?     I do.   They are the spiteful spirits that keep the ten pen from falling when you throw a strike ball; they cause a faucet to drip all night; they cause trouble with your car that disappears when you take it to the dealership for repair; and they are surely the ones that made the lights go out and the back-up heater fail tonight when the temps dropped to eight below – probably thirty below with wind chill. 

We can’t see these rascally creatures; but cats can.   Did you ever wonder why a cat suddenly jump up and charge across the room for seemingly no reason?    He probably just chased a fairy.   Cats are always vigilant for these trouble makers and do their best to keep them from our houses.

Almost five.  Going back to bed – if I can find room between my wife and the two cats which are bed hogs.    

the Ol’Buzzard