Snow day

We had a huge snow storm on New Years day 2008, which I blogged about. And now on December 1, 2008 we have had another heavy wet snow that closed schools and got me stuck in the driveway on the way to work. Fortunately a good samarin came by with a plow on the front of his pick-up truck. He saw Dick trying to dig me out by hand. So he came back, plowed the bottom of the drive and then dragged a path for me to drive out. Thank you kind man with the white truck and red blade.

The snow is beautiful and it was a perfect "snow-person" and fort building day because the temperature stayed just above freezing. Roofs were dripping until late in the afternoon when the temperatures fell below freezing and the roads got icy again.

Early Signs of Spring

1. Horses are shedding like mad.
2. The mare I ride is crabby, but a LOT less so than last year, Image is growing up at last!
3. The Robins have been back for a couple of weeks.
4. The black birds are back. The Starlings came a week ago, The Grackles and Red Wing Black Birds yesterday.
5. A pile of black stuff on the corner by the old gas station that looks like a new delivery of top soil. I would believe it if I didn't know better.
6. Lots of soft bird "twitters" - songs of small birds that I do not bother to identify. Some are surely House Finches and Gold Finches and various sparrows.
7. The male Cardinals whistling their territorial fences into place.
8. Mud under foot, over a layer of frost still in the soil.
9. Swiss cheese pot holes in the dirt road between our driveway and the pavement.
10. The same soft spot in our driveway that appears every spring as the frost goes out.
11. The sun is back for more than one day at a stretch.
12. Frost on the Silver Dog House in the morning.
13. Maple Syrup boiling in the pans.
14. The breezes feel softer.

March in Michigan

Spring is on the way but the weather is typical Michigan. The snow that fell for a very few minutes this morning looked more like someone had torn open an old bean bag chair and spread those little styrofoam beads all around. And they stayed on the ground for hours. The sun finally came out mid afternoon to prove he was truly still around not lost after all.

Heard geese as I left the library after work at 8 PM.

Spring Fever

50* this morning. No more pretty white snow. Instead puddles on the ice, dirty piles of snow on road sides with soil thrown up by the plows melting and running over the pavement. Rain pockmarking what had been the white blanket hiding what is beginning to peek out of ragged holes. It is so warm at work that we propped the back doors open to let fresh air inside the building. A sudden downpour of rain mid morning had me rushing to close the doors - oh well only vinyl floors and metal and glass doors, all will dry. When the rain quit the doors were opened again to let in the air. {I hate the way they build modern buildings with windows that can not be opened. The air is either heated or air conditioned, the same air we have been breathing for years, it seems, just recycled}. Patrons calling to ask "please let me renew my movies - I can't drive on the back roads" The rain on the packed snow has turned the roads to the slipperiest surface possible - wet ice. They decide to close school early and send the kids home. I shake my head - how does that help? Wet ice at noon or wet ice at 4:00. By afternoon the patrons are talking about the next storm on its way due Tuesday night - 9 inches of snow predicted for mid Michigan between Mt. Pleasant and I-69. That's us. Ice south of I-69.

Hey its still winter in Michigan, Spring does not arrive until Maunday Thursday this year. Three weeks away almost. But spring fever was in the air this morning we have had a enough winter this year. After all the road commission is out of road salt.

Tandaina was also thinking of Spring today.

WEATHER, Weather, weather

!!HAPPY LEAP DAY !!

TODAY IS A DAY OFF FOR BLOG365 - but oh well I actually have a thought [actually two connected thoughts] which has been a struggle lately so I guess I wont waste them.

Will it ever thaw? Will the snow stop falling?
This morning the snow is coming down hard in very fine crystals that look more like a cloud of flour than flakes. But if we have to have winter - which we do and it is a good thing for the fruit trees and farmers fields - I would prefer snow to bare brown.

One thing very interesting happening. There has been so much snow this winter that the road commissions are out of salt or nearly so. So instead of the roads being a wet sloppy mess as soon as the snow starts falling there are just patches of sand and salt at the tops of steep hills with stop signs, or on intersections at State Highways. But for the most part the roads are snow covered and we are mostly managing just fine. Hmmmm might this be a clue for a way for road commissions to save a lot of money another winter and make drivers learn to drive safely in snowy weather. hmmmmm

Bah!

Blog365
I am getting bored with this trying to post every day. I have nothing interesting to say. I bore myself.
Winter is cold and long this year - we all know that.
Had an enjoyable ride on Image today. That was the high point of the day.
Going to bed early - was so sleepy driving to the barn this afternoon it was scary.
DH off to the Sportsmen's Club for a meeting.

Guess I will try to find a picture to give you. The snow has to melt someday.

Weather

More snow this morning. It is wet and sticky, clinging to every surface that it touches, whether horizontal or vertical.

I seem to talk about the weather on this blog an awful lot, but we have had more snow this winter than any year since my daughters, who are now adults and I dare not divulge their ages, were in Kindergarten and nursery school.

DH came across an interesting article titled "Forget Global Warming" yesterday in his perusal of the news on the internet. I had seen in other sources that our snow fall for this winter is above average. That is a good thing, maybe the Great Lake's level will come back up a bit this winter. I have long thought the global warming panic was a bunch of bunk. I agreed that yes it is possible we are in for an period of slightly warmer weather, it has happed before in recorded history. There have been periods when it was warmer than it is now, and periods when it was colder. But I have always been of the school of thought that the cycles of the sun spots and natural changes in weather were more responsible than humans could be. I have read that the sun has been in a period of rather active sun spots. I do not remember how long that has been but I do know that AM radio reception has been very poor for several years as a result. This article reports scientists from Canada, Europe, Russia, and the US. are suggesting that the fact that the sun spots have now subsided and the sun is now very quiet will lead to global cooling. The most recent mini-ice age that lasted about 400 years coincided with a period of low sun spot activity. The melted polar ice cap is now back and snow is deeper, this winter, all around the northern hemisphere than it has been in decades. China is having the most sever winter they have experienced in decades.

Only time will tell - but the media and politicians love to make a crisis out of everything. And I am not going to worry about the seas boiling or the glaciers overcoming my home.