Posts Tagged ‘weather’
Snow Goes
The month of March arrives with its saying about lambs and lions, but the climate confusion we have going may require we come up with a new definition for the chaos of winter’s departure. Last week’s snow is fading fast around here now.
The little snowman that Sara made on Saturday has become just a fraction of his old self in the back yard.
In a week and a half we’ll be moving clocks again to shift the days an hour forward. Will it inspire me to get anything more accomplished in the evenings after work? I don’t know.
There is plenty to be done, but my motivation has been lacking by the time I get home from the commute. Of course, yesterday it happened to be a gloomy gray day.
If the sun is out and the air gets warm, I expect there will be an added spring in my step.
With the grounds wet and soft, I can turn my attention to some machine maintenance that is more than due, and there is always wood to be split.
Indoors, we have an appointment tonight for a quote on window replacements, and then I have a dishwasher door that needs the counter-balance spring mechanisms replaced.
I don’t see a day on the calendar marked for lollygagging around anywhere in the near future.
Do I need to make an appointment for that?
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Quick Return
It feels like spring! Seriously. A day after the snowstorm, our uncharacteristic weather has made a quick return. The clouds are gone, the sky deep blue, the sun shining bright, the air warm, and the snow, totally sticky and melting. It is something that can’t be controlled, so we just take what is delivered.
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The back yard is filled with evidence of visitors sledding and building snow sculptures. The snow is sliding off the metal roof of the shop.
I may look into a metal roof for the house when our shingles reach the end of their life. I would prefer to have the snow slide off the roof without my needing to pull it down using a rake on a very long pole handle.
I got a little tired toward the end of my efforts of pulling down snow from the roof on Saturday. On the last section, I hung the rake on the lip of the eave, just like I had done all the way around the rest of the house. But I let go of the handle with a careless lack of attention to detail.
It swung away from me with a little too much momentum. As I watched a fraction of a second last much longer than that in my mind, but quicker than my body could react to, the rake lost contact with the roof.
Why couldn’t it just fall harmlessly to the ground beside the house?
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Different Landscape
As predicted, by Friday morning our landscape didn’t look at all like it had on Thursday. While the bulk of the Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan area squeaked by with nary a flying flake, our county rode the sharp northwest edge of precipitation and Wintervale Ranch received a respectable 9-10 inches by the end of the day yesterday.
Taken late Wednesday afternoon.
Taken Friday before noon.
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I took the snowy picture shortly after plowing the driveway in the morning, about mid-way through the duration of snowfall. Tracking the total accumulation involves some guess-work because the ground was so warm that snow was melting from the bottom up. The flakes also settle under their own weight and then the gusts of wind were whipping up some fair drifting.
The National Weather Service report from just south of us was 11 inches and the next reading to our northwest was 9.5 inches. Since we are located between those, and our anecdotal evidence coincides, I feel justified with the assessment I presented in the opening paragraph.
Plowing was a hassle because the bottom layer of the snow was heavy and wet, and the ground was soft from the recent thaw. It led to the blade tearing up bad spots of pavement, as well as the turf on each side of the driveway.
I like snow removal to look neat and tidy, but I was making a mess of things. Also, since I was plowing in the middle of the storm —to turn it into two small efforts instead of one big one— the new falling flakes were piling up as fast as I cleared what was already on the ground.
It didn’t look like a job well-done, but it was perfectly fine for a mid-event effort.
Cyndie had put the horses inside the barn Thursday night in anticipation of the snow’s arrival, which had been predicted to start out as rain. We checked the radar several times that evening, for an indication of the timing of the precipitation’s start, but even though it appeared to already be snowing overhead, it was actually still dry outside on our grounds by the time we went to sleep.
When morning dawned, it was all white outside.
As the blowing and snowing became the obvious order of the day, it got easier to make a decision to stay indoors by the fire all afternoon. I played my guitar until I started to get sleepy. We watched a movie.
It feels a little like winter around here again.
It will be strange come Monday when I drive a few miles toward the cities for work and return to the places nearby that didn’t get the snow. We are now under a completely different landscape for a while.
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Modern Convenience
It was sunny and 60-some degrees at our place yesterday. If it weren’t for the modern convenience of accurate weather forecasting giving us several days warning of an impending snowstorm, I would be completely clueless about what is headed our way. By Friday morning, the view of our property won’t look like this again for a while.
I will not be surprised if the alignment of the storm moving in this evening brings us around a foot of snow, based on the models published by the weather services.
Such a significant contrast of weather in just over a day is something I would not be able to comprehend happening without the present day wisdom, and data gleaned from satellites and radar images. My intuitive senses for interpreting the weather are far too dull to perceive that the warm sunshine yesterday afternoon was so quickly going to become a distant memory.
At the same time, it is still February, after all. It’s supposed to be wintery weather. So I am well prepared for whatever cold and blowing snow may arrive. I have my special leg warmer to keep me comfortable while chronicling the brutal challenges I face when plowing and shoveling the oodles of snowflakes inbound on our position.
Pequenita seems to like napping on my legs when I stretch out. It’s cute, but can’t be all that comfortable for her, and it tends to lock down my posture long enough that numbness sets in.
Maybe she is sensing the oncoming storm and wants to keep me safe and warm in preparation for doing battle when it comes time to dig out.
In the mean time, I hope to spend most of the day Friday in front of a warm fire, watching the flakes fly outside the windows.
See ya later, warm sunshine.
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Next Phase
Picking up where the tree trimmers left off, I pulled the tractor out of the garage yesterday and we started the process of turning the piles of branches into wood chips. With the temperatures pushing into warmth much more typical for May or June, the timing was perfect for having fresh ground cover over the now muddy path leading down toward the barn from the driveway.
I quickly relearned how much physical effort is involved in the process of repeatedly feeding the chipping monster. The variety of branches that came out of our trees made for a constant struggle to detangle, reorient, and guide into the chute.
The smallest ends of branches will catch and get hung up on the corners, which interrupts flow, and the big limbs tend to bounce and torque when first struck by the powerful spinning blades. My body and hands frequently get smacked by the kick-back of the bigger branches.
After a prolonged session of working to make a pile of branches disappear into a wonderful mound of precious wood chips, I feel like I’ve been a few rounds in a boxing match.
Cyndie helped to bring branches from farther and farther, and worked to cut junctions that “Y” off too wide to fit the bottom of the narrowing chute. We parked the tractor on the solid pavement of the driveway to be out of the mud that is quickly becoming the prevailing footing during this unbelievable February melt down.
We took a little break for lunch and then when I came out for a few more rounds of battle, it was T-shirt weather. It is just plain sad to be living through the end of cold and snowy winters like the ones I enjoyed as a kid. I fear for the precious trees I have been focused on caring for these last few days, as they react to the warmth and prepare to sprout new buds.
If they sprout leaves too early, they risk an ugly death from freezing when a hint of real winter returns for a last gasp reminder of cold that usually happens this time of year.
When I turned the key to restart the tractor, nothing happened. Well, not nothing. The indicator lights lit up, but there was no hint of sound from the starter. I have experienced this before. It was how I was first introduced to this tractor. No matter what I did, I could not get it to start.
That first time, I ended up needing to have a service person come out. He accidentally figured out the safety interlock of the PTO lever wasn’t getting met. After chasing a different possibility for a time, I came around to the same conclusion. It was the PTO lever again.
I got the engine started, repositioned the tractor to a new spot and was ready to go. I picked a big old dead oak branch to start and quickly busted the shear pin of the chipper.
I took the hint and called it a day for chipping.
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Tidying Up
With temperatures climbing into the 40s yesterday, Cyndie and I saw an opportunity to do a little tidying up around the property. After the most recent bouts of quasi-winter rain-sleet-snow precipitation, an annoying icy, glazed mass of packed snow had become the surface of our driveway.
I took out an ice scraper and pushed away at the soft, wet edges of the ice pack in front of the house. The portion that will come up without resistance is visibly obvious. I focused on that, picking the low-hanging fruit. After working the edges and then pushing the crumble of snow and ice to the side with my shovel, I looked back to see there was already a whole new measure of visibly obvious portions that begged attention.
How could I not keep going? After three times around, I had the whole upper platform of our driveway clean to the pavement. The melt was happening at an amazing rate.
Cyndie was down with the horses, planning to give each of them some individual attention and grooming. That was my next stop, thinking I could hang out with them and clean up manure while she brushed them out. Even though there was a cloud cover painting the day with a hue of gray, the air was absolutely calm, allowing the warm temperature to feel perfectly comfortable without getting hot.
Legacy’s tail has always grown long, but Cyndie noticed it had reached a point where he was stepping on it, so she decided to give it a trim.
After scooping fresh manure from under the overhang, I fanned out a little further around the paddock and picked up some of the newly exposed piles emerging from the melting snow. Like the last couple of winters, we have been dumping much of the season’s worth of manure right inside the paddock.
Since much of the manure is frozen by the time we get around to scooping it up, there isn’t much in the way of composting that goes on in the pile, so it just keeps getting bigger and bigger with every passing day.
Continuing with the theme of tidying up, I decided to try giving the giant mass a little more shape by cleaning up around the edges. I was surprised to discover over the last few winter seasons that despite the dark color of the pile, if it starts out frozen, if left alone, the center can stay frozen well into May or June.
We placed this pile at a spot that we would like to fill in effort to reduce the amount of slope, but it becomes a long slow process to move from an ugly pile of manure to an unnoticeable natural ground cover nicely filling a low spot.
All part of the ongoing process of running a neat and tidy ranch operation, regardless what the weather presents.
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More Nuisance
January closed out with the 17th day in a row of above average temperatures in this region, punctuated by another minor inconvenience of a snowfall that was more nuisance than anything else. With the warm temps, much of the snow was melting while it was also accumulating. Weird science.
Once again, enough snow to make a mess, but hardly enough to shovel.
The problem is, though, before it actually melts enough to offer clear walkways, colder air will be moving in to freeze everything up. After that, it becomes a mess that hangs around for a while.
As I got closer to work yesterday morning, the precipitation became more of a drizzling mist than snow. The heavily treated surface of the freeways stayed mostly wet, but as I came barreling up the off-ramp, I quickly realized I was carrying a little too much momentum.
By sheer luck, the traffic light was in my favor and I didn’t need to stop. I made my way gently to the parking lot and had my suspicions confirmed when I placed my foot on the slick pavement. There was a thin but very effective glaze on the road surface.
This was my second day of driving my Subaru after having picked it up from the body shop, looking good as new. The slippery footing gave me flashbacks of the day I got rear-ended.
I arrived so early, the daily paper hadn’t been delivered yet. That gave rise to a vision of the person sliding into my parked car when they pulled in to toss the news.
My car was safe and sound when I stepped out to check on the delivery. It looked like the driver had avoided my car by staying far away and throwing the bagged newspaper a longer distance. When it landed, the bag stuck to the icy pavement and the paper just kept on sliding. It was efficiently soaking up the wetness about 10 feet away from the bag.
Other staff didn’t have as much luck as me. Several people slid into a snowbank around a turn. After the facility maintenance truck showed up to add salt to the dangerous glaze, it slid around that same corner, smashing into one of our employee’s car in the process.
Makes the little bit of messy snow we have at home seem like a lot less of a nuisance in comparison.
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Liquid Water
Even with the temperatures back under 32° (F) all day and night again, there is water on one of our trails that hasn’t re-frozen. I can only guess that it might be because there is enough volume moving past that spot toward lower ground. Flowing water is more resistant to freezing.
It takes a long dry spell in the summer for that spot to completely dry out, so it is no surprise that water is present now. I just find it odd that there isn’t more freezing going on.
Walking along on the crunchy snow of the trail, it’s weird to suddenly come upon a splash and a squish on a cold winter day.
I suppose I should get used to it. Seems like this winter we are getting as many rain events as snowfalls. Today’s weather forecast includes chances of rain and snow with a high temperature of 38°.
This ain’t my daddy’s winter weather.
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Much Better
We enjoyed a brief visit from the sun yesterday, which made quick work of melting areas I cleared of the small amount of snow left from the most recent precipitation.
The front tire on the Grizzly held air, so the Slime patch appears to be working. After getting the driveway and barn areas plowed, I hand-shoveled to clean up nooks and corners, then parked the ATV for this photo and headed in for lunch.
Once refueled, I ventured out again to shovel off the deck before turning my attention to plowing trails to make way for the bucket truck of the tree trimmers. I wish it had been a colder day.
Our record-setting January thaw has left the ground a little soft in places and my plow blade tended to dig in to the muddy ground, peeling up large rolls of earth. There isn’t really any flat ground here, and as the angle of the ATV tilts, the result at the end of the plow blade gets exaggerated. That makes it very difficult to figure out a height setting of the blade that won’t be too high or too low.
There really is no “just right” setting. If it is not digging in a little bit on one side or the other, it is usually because it is not plowing any snow at all as a result of being too high.
Regardless, I think I’ve established a drive-able section of two, maybe three, routes down our trails to reach a majority of the big trees we are hoping to have trimmed. I will not be surprised at all if the truck looks a lot bigger than I’m imagining once it arrives and attempts to turn the corners.
At the end of the day, as promised, I got a call from the auto body shop that my Subaru repair was completed. Cyndie drove me to pick it up. It looks good as new. They even gave it that new car smell. The owner was reviewing all the work they had done and I added, “Alignment.”
“Was that on the estimate?” Uh oh.
We headed inside to check, and sure enough, I was right. He was very apologetic. Said it was completely his fault that it got missed. Oh boy. Now I need to bring it back next week and drop it off again. People!
At least it looks much, much better than when I brought it in the first time.
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Relative Something 