Saturday, December 20, 2008

Winter Storm Warnings

The storm Ed Abbey wrote about on Thursday arrived here early Friday morning. Instead of the ice that was being called for in Iowa, we got snow and lots of it. At 4 AM, the winds were blowing and we’d already received an inch or so of snow. By 6, the snow and blowing wind had filled in the sidewalks and driveway. It kept snowing hard. The snowplow didn’t arrive till 10 AM, at which time we had 6 or 8 inches. The snow kept coming and by the time it ended around 1 PM, the driveway had another 5 or 6 inches. In all, we received about a foot of snow, on top of the six inches we’d gotten a few days ago. And the weather gurus are calling for another 6-8 inches tonight and tomorrow morning. And more again on Tuesday…

During the storm I went out to shovel out a path around the doors so that the dog could go his business and a path to the driveway (gotta be nice to the paperboy and mail-lady). In the five minutes I was out in the blowing snow, my hat received this much snow. I decided I needed to take a picture of it. Notice too the snow streaking down between the hat and camera.

I went out and skied a bit later in the afternoon. As I'm heading South in a few days, I better enjoy the snow while we have it (but I don't have much time as I have lots to finish before I leave). How are your Christmas preparations comings?

20 comments:

  1. It's been cold for so cal - the local golf course was covered in frost this morning. That is a very cool photo!

    I just started reading Home by Marilynne Robinson, a companion book to Gilead.

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  2. Diane: I haven't read "Home" You'll have to let me know how it is. What did you think of Doug Peacock's "Walking It Off"?

    Murf: Sitting on the dryer inside the basement door--I just stepped back out long enough to snap the photo. I WORE gloves when shoveling!

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  3. Nice!

    I ate too much already, from all the gatherings etc, so I went out shoveling, but alas my house is south facing, so the sun does much of the work for me, so boring :(

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  4. Preparations? What preparations?

    Mine are on the back-burner, since I have been working so much. I didn't get home from the wedding delivery today until 8:30 pm!!

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  5. Thankfully moving back into a portion of the house that's been under renovation for about a million years. Tomorrow I will try and find some Christmas favorites to help stir memories of holidays past.Mom is making fudge and sausage balls and tomorrow I will help host "Cookies with Santa" for the retired women in our church. They sit on his lap and have their picture taken. Don't even get me started on that!A variety of things to ready me for the season but mostly I look forward to our Christmas Eve service with communion, flute/piano duets with my sister and seeing those once a year friends that Christmas draws to our hometown.

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  6. Haha, I laughed and nodded along with the first paragraph :) It's been snowing again since 3 p.m., and doesn't show any sign of stopping any time soon!

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  7. Sage, you sure know how to tease a Floridian with all your snow stories (and to top it off, a snowy hat photo!).

    I should post pics of myself wearing a scuba diving outfit with a Santa hat...just for giggles. ;)

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  8. Sage - I am just finishing up Peacock's book, (I'm listening to Home in my car), and I am very much enjoying it. I find him to be insightful without being self-pitying, and I love his philosophy of wildlife and wild places. I think he writes well, too.

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  9. I can't imagine what it would be like living in your part of the country, but that picture shows me enough. The cold we're having in Southern Calif. is nothing compared to yours.

    I completed my Christmas shopping this morning. I only have to buy one present - my wife's. She takes care of everyone else in our family.

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  10. Mother Hen, you mean the sun still shines? Here, we've had something like 8 hours of sun this month!

    Kenju, I know the feeling of working too much

    Susie, Christmas eve candlelight services are always special

    TC, we can blame the snow on you cheeseheads that keep sending it across the lake, eh?

    Scarlet, Let us see the picture

    Diane, I'm glad you like Peacock. Are you going to write a review?

    Dan, the snow is great only if you like winter outdoor sports.

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  11. It was in the 70's yesterday and incredible--a great beach day. Today it's yucky and makes me want snow. Tomorrow we're supposed to have a high of 40something and go down to the 30's. Excited as I can actually wear a winter coat and not look like an idiot. Though a week ago Saturday it was in the 30's and people were wearing sweaters without thermal underwear. I got sick for them :)

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  12. This year December is warm. Not that we get much winters here in Delhi but a warm December was unheard of.

    Well, I plan to bake a rum cake for christmas. Note the words, I plan..

    *grin*

    Merry Christmas to you...

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  13. Christmas preparations? I'm already ready for spring.

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  14. Christmas prep is done! It is finally feeling like Christmas around here. The temp dropped from the low 70s/upper 60s and we feel the chill. No white stuff, but that's the South.

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  15. I'll think about you while mowing my lawn in short sleeves this week...

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  16. I looked at the picture before reading your post and thought, boy, Sage has a skinny neck! Need to lay off the yule time rum! :P

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  17. Sage, A number of us people here in Pennsylvania would have taken some of that snow instead of our ice. :) We haven't had a snow yet to build a snowman.

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  18. I don't exactly love winter, but since it's cold, it may as well snow. At least then we could go 4-wheeling or snowmobiling. We get the cold here (south-central PA) but for some reason, we're in this circular area where snow goes around us most of the time.

    I'd definitely like winter more if we had more snow.

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