Cold, clear, crisp
2/18/06 6:23 am.
-17º F, Clear, NW wind 9 mph,, Gusting 27 mph., -39º F wind chill.
Good morning,
Yup! Winter is here for sure - at least for the moment. It is definitely clear, cold, and crisp outside. Warm in here though. About midway through the afternoon yesterday, I finally realized how beautiful and enjoyable the day was outside. The air was so clean and clear, the sun shining, and yes, the wind was really blowing. It felt so good to be out. I really felt alive - in my element, as it were.
The wind was doing some wonderful things with the snow. Our part-time neighbors yard is pretty free of trees. The snow cover looks much like a desert of white - until you look closely. There are small drifts across the surface that look like waves on the lake, frozen in time. They are very small, only and eight to a quarter of in inch high, extending in rows, for maybe two to twenty feet long. Almost like a family of drifts in one spot, with other families spread out over the entire "desert" of the yard. They are formed by the wind actually breaking off parts of other snowflakes and blowing them about. If your really look closely, you can see the small particles being driven by the wind along the surface of the snow, rising off of each drift and spinning in the turbulence of air on the downwind side. Some fall and build the drift higher while others continue on, dropping who knows where. It is a sparkling, wonderful, white world, just waiting to be discovered and observed! I love it.
There are also big snowdrifts everywhere. Like the one a couple of feet high behind the van, or the straight narrow kind flowing from either side of a tree or branch. The snow that has remained on pine branches, their weight bending them down to the ground, almost to appear as they are praying. There are few critter tracks about. Only a couple from a deer, and some human tracks - mine.
The shoveling went a lot better than I thought it would. The heaviest snow is near the house where the wind dumped the most of it on the downwind side. Some of the snow on the last have of the drive is only 5-6" deep, not enough to stop the van. I will probably only shovel out the deepest and run through the rest. At present I have a path to the van. Today it will be my focus to clean out the opening to the road and get the van out and about. I am helping to serve communion and Margriet is a greater at church tomorrow for the second service, so we need to get out for that at least.
About mid afternoon yesterday the temperature really started to nose-dive. By the time I finished shoveling for the day, about 6:00 pm., the temperature had fallen to -3º F from a high of about 12 º F at noon. You could almost watch the mercury move down in the thermometer about sundown. We left the heat on at a bit higher than normal setting overnight, to keep the underside of the house a little warmer. We also let the water in the kitchen sink, last on the line, run just to hopefully keep the pipes from freezing. They didn’t thankfully.
Jack Frost has also been working on the windows, but not as he used to when I was a kid. The modern windows are too well constructed not allowing as much warm are through them. Kind of miss the patterns on the windows in a way, but also glad they are not as prevalent as they were. I like the less heat-loss.
Margriet made bread in the afternoon yesterday. Instead of her usual two loaves, she made one into cinnamon rolls. It smelled so good when I came in between shoveling stints. As soon as they were out of the oven and cool enough, I had to have a sample. Well OK - really two. It has been a long time since she made them, so they tasted especially good. They also became our supper instead of the meatloaf originally on the menu. Wonderful. Had to have a sample as a warm up to get ready for breakfast too!
A suburb of Green Bay, DePere, cancelled their "Polar Plunge" today. Apparently it is too cold for the folks to jump into the Fox River! Maybe they should change the name of it since they only do it in less than polar conditions. I see the Chicago (I think) police department has a deal for some of their officers to jump into Lake Michigan once an hour. Both events are to raise money for various charities. The idea is good, but the execution is ....... not for me.
Time to find a shovel and get the day a-going.
In Christ My Saviour,
Chris <><
-17º F, Clear, NW wind 9 mph,, Gusting 27 mph., -39º F wind chill.
Good morning,
Yup! Winter is here for sure - at least for the moment. It is definitely clear, cold, and crisp outside. Warm in here though. About midway through the afternoon yesterday, I finally realized how beautiful and enjoyable the day was outside. The air was so clean and clear, the sun shining, and yes, the wind was really blowing. It felt so good to be out. I really felt alive - in my element, as it were.
The wind was doing some wonderful things with the snow. Our part-time neighbors yard is pretty free of trees. The snow cover looks much like a desert of white - until you look closely. There are small drifts across the surface that look like waves on the lake, frozen in time. They are very small, only and eight to a quarter of in inch high, extending in rows, for maybe two to twenty feet long. Almost like a family of drifts in one spot, with other families spread out over the entire "desert" of the yard. They are formed by the wind actually breaking off parts of other snowflakes and blowing them about. If your really look closely, you can see the small particles being driven by the wind along the surface of the snow, rising off of each drift and spinning in the turbulence of air on the downwind side. Some fall and build the drift higher while others continue on, dropping who knows where. It is a sparkling, wonderful, white world, just waiting to be discovered and observed! I love it.
There are also big snowdrifts everywhere. Like the one a couple of feet high behind the van, or the straight narrow kind flowing from either side of a tree or branch. The snow that has remained on pine branches, their weight bending them down to the ground, almost to appear as they are praying. There are few critter tracks about. Only a couple from a deer, and some human tracks - mine.
The shoveling went a lot better than I thought it would. The heaviest snow is near the house where the wind dumped the most of it on the downwind side. Some of the snow on the last have of the drive is only 5-6" deep, not enough to stop the van. I will probably only shovel out the deepest and run through the rest. At present I have a path to the van. Today it will be my focus to clean out the opening to the road and get the van out and about. I am helping to serve communion and Margriet is a greater at church tomorrow for the second service, so we need to get out for that at least.
About mid afternoon yesterday the temperature really started to nose-dive. By the time I finished shoveling for the day, about 6:00 pm., the temperature had fallen to -3º F from a high of about 12 º F at noon. You could almost watch the mercury move down in the thermometer about sundown. We left the heat on at a bit higher than normal setting overnight, to keep the underside of the house a little warmer. We also let the water in the kitchen sink, last on the line, run just to hopefully keep the pipes from freezing. They didn’t thankfully.
Jack Frost has also been working on the windows, but not as he used to when I was a kid. The modern windows are too well constructed not allowing as much warm are through them. Kind of miss the patterns on the windows in a way, but also glad they are not as prevalent as they were. I like the less heat-loss.
Margriet made bread in the afternoon yesterday. Instead of her usual two loaves, she made one into cinnamon rolls. It smelled so good when I came in between shoveling stints. As soon as they were out of the oven and cool enough, I had to have a sample. Well OK - really two. It has been a long time since she made them, so they tasted especially good. They also became our supper instead of the meatloaf originally on the menu. Wonderful. Had to have a sample as a warm up to get ready for breakfast too!
A suburb of Green Bay, DePere, cancelled their "Polar Plunge" today. Apparently it is too cold for the folks to jump into the Fox River! Maybe they should change the name of it since they only do it in less than polar conditions. I see the Chicago (I think) police department has a deal for some of their officers to jump into Lake Michigan once an hour. Both events are to raise money for various charities. The idea is good, but the execution is ....... not for me.
Time to find a shovel and get the day a-going.
In Christ My Saviour,
Chris <><
posted by Fisk | 6:51 AM
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