Posts Tagged ‘freezing fog’
Interesting Conditions
Here’s something I find interesting: The NFL team I have been a fan of for my entire life, the Minnesota Vikings, has exceeded most expectations to reach 14 wins in 16 games in 2024. We fans always wish for success like this, but I never expected such impressive results to happen this year.
Even more interesting is the fact that the Detroit Lions, who have been the better team for the last two years, are in the same Division as Minnesota, and the schedule has us facing each other next week in the last game of the regular season that will determine the Division champion and number one seed in the playoffs.
Very interesting.
Meanwhile, our weather continues to hover around the freezing point, causing the persistent fog to freeze on surfaces overnight and melt to merely wet during the day.
The way it froze on the driveway was really interesting. When I stepped out just an hour later, most of that had melted. Most being the keyword because there were still slippery spots every so often, invisibly hiding in plain sight.
I’m ever so grateful that there is nowhere we need to be driving in these conditions.
Walking to the barn in the mornings is hard enough.
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Precarious Footing
Yesterday afternoon, we received a wonderful surprise in the form of sunlight and a visible blue sky after days of being socked in by a persistent fog.
The view when we headed down to feed the horses was spectacular!
Too bad it didn’t last. Not long after darkness fell, my phone pinged with a weather service warning of dense fog again. With the large dose of moisture lingering after yesterday’s rain and the airborne water vapor coating surfaces as the temperature hovered around the freezing point, Cyndie found the driveway dangerously slippery when she snuck out to retrieve the feed buckets.
This morning, it is even worse.
The asphalt of the driveway was too slippery to navigate on foot, so we backtracked and cut through the side doors of the garage to get to the backyard for a route to the barn.
The horses were coping but didn’t look too pleased with the conditions either. The poor pigeons were having quite a time of it when they tried landing on the metal roof and couldn’t keep from sliding.
It will be a good day to stay indoors, where I can finish my next jigsaw puzzle and watch the Vikings/Packers matchup with a glowing fire in the fireplace.
That blue sky yesterday afternoon now feels like it was just a mirage.
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Second Greatest
As I stepped out our front door to get my shovels for clearing off the deck yesterday morning, I heard the sound of a car engine in front of our garage doors. I came around the corner to find a gentleman walking around his car and we exchanged greetings. He said he lived just five miles away near the Rush River and added that our place looked really beautiful.
Dawn, Sunday morning.
Then he said he wanted to tell me about three things in the Bible… I politely interrupted him to let him know he didn’t need to finish. He asked how long we’d lived here and we shared a few more tidbits about ourselves. I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to do a little proselytizing, myself.
I said that I am all about love. He lit up and said love was what Christianity was about. My response is that love is what all religions are about.
My second greatest accomplishment after taking action to treat my depression is my enlightenment about embracing love as the single most important intention humans should focus on every single day in our thoughts and actions as we navigate our way through life. Love for other people, ALL people, animals, nature, the planet, ourselves, the universe, and mysteries in planes of existence we can’t even prove exist.
When you allow yourself to truly love, it makes it easier to forgive.
Love is magical.
Yesterday morning was a foggy one. It was a freezing fog, actually. While feeding the horses and cleaning up, I made my way in and out of the barn many times, getting their feed pans, filling bags of hay, getting the wheelbarrow and scooper, and retrieving their empty feed pans. Each time I came out of the barn, the fog had increased.
Dusk, yesterday afternoon.
First, I couldn’t see the evergreen trees across the road. Then, I couldn’t see the road. Eventually, I couldn’t see anything around us. It didn’t last long but it was around long enough for delicate ice crystals to form on everything the fog touched. I loved it!
While I was visiting with the guy in front of our garage, the icy crystals started snowing down off tree branches all at once. It created a fairy tale scene that made it seem like we were in a snow globe ornament.
At noon, I went down to the barn and worked on freeing the big sliding doors from ice that formed after the last storm of freezing drizzle and rain/drizzle/snow. A little calcium chloride helped get the job done.
With our winter hours, I’ve been feeding horses in the morning before the sun comes up and in the afternoon after the sun has gone down.
I sure love the views we get to enjoy.
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Really Enjoying
Despite the unhealthy air quality associated with our current weather pattern, I am really enjoying the visuals all this fog creates.
Once again, Cyndie comes through with some wonderful shots…
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She said the horses looked like they had been sprinkled with powdered sugar. Their backs and even their tails were flocked with frozen crystals from the fog, but she wasn’t close enough for it to show in the pictures.
Who knows what today will bring. There have been predictions the sun will shine later and the temperatures will climb above freezing. I won’t complain about that, but this freezing fog sure has been fun for the spectacular visuals it creates.
Frosty Landscape
Not just frost, but rime ice from a day of freezing fog! When I left work yesterday afternoon, I needed sunglasses due to the bright sunshine.
As I approached the border where Minnesota ends and Wisconsin begins, the color palette changed significantly. I had to lose the shades.
It looked like the fog I had driven through on the way to work in the early morning darkness must have lingered for most of the day. The last twenty minutes of my commute home was a glorious spectacle of varying degrees of frosty views against a dark gray sky.
It was fabulous. It reminded me again of how clueless I was as a kid when I vehemently trash-talked white-flocked fake Christmas trees because they made absolutely no sense to me. Why would anyone paint a tree white!?
Apparently, I hadn’t yet seen the real thing in the wild for myself. I totally get it now.
I tried capturing a few shots at home before the daylight entirely vanished, even though our property wasn’t quite as spectacular as the landscape I saw along the ridges between River Falls and our place.
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There was just a hint of sunset color showing through a thin spot in the cloud cover as the big orange orb was reaching the tree line.
How pastel.
And all of it, beautiful.
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Relative Something 