January 14, 2009
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If zero was tropical, what’s this?
It snowed Tuesday. It snowed a lot. At one point during the day, I looked out, and the fresh snow was higher than the back of a cat. It snowed more after that, but I have no idea how much was accumulated before it turned to rain last night. Now it is compacted and slushy, with a crisp layer of ice about half an inch thick on top.
Koji loves the warm weather. Yesterday, he went out and was gone so long that by the time he came to the door wanting in, I had forgotten he was outside. This morning, while Doug was shoveling the roof and I was doing a little bit of path snoveling, Koji was trotting around in the slush, a truly happy husky.
My first trip out there, I was wearing a knit cap with no brim, and my glasses got covered with freezing rain. I came in, cleaned the glasses, and put on my floppy reversible polar fleece hat. The sound of the icy raindrops hitting the hat was so resonant that I chuckled out loud. I ran out of energy before I had done much work, but I did manage to scrape a lot of snow off the porch and steps, and a slushy path out as far as my car.
I also found the ash bucket, scooped the snow out of the top of it, and scattered the ashes on the ice and compacted slush on the steps and path. It will be slick when freezing temperatures return.
A brief message Greyfox left on CallWave this morning, said it is windy in Wasilla. The radio says high winds for Anchorage: 85 MPH with gust to 105 MPH along Turnagain Arm and at higher elevations. That’s the part of Anchorage where I used to live, and I remember watching furniture blow by in some of those wind storms.
Schools are closed in Anchorage and the entire Matanuska-Susitna Borough because of icy roads. Lots of other closures, too. Life that went on in a relatively normal fashion at temperatures from -20 to -40°F, comes to a skidding halt when the weather warms up.
I was wise to take extreme measures to get my car started and go for food and water Monday. I also think I prudently stopped snoveling today within my safe limit. I’ll know for certain by tomorrow whether that’s true.
Doug took a short break a moment ago to come in and check the damage from a freak occurrence on the roof. An icy ball of snow flung from his shovel, just the right size to go down the vent pipe over the kitchen stove, took off the blades of the exhaust fan, and left a pile of slush on the stove. He’s back up there again, now, finishing this roof before moving over to the little cabin to clear that roof.
I am letting the fire in the woodstove burn down. Then I will shovel out several weeks’ accumulation of ashes, and build a new fire.
Seeya later.
P.S. Does anyone know the reasoning behind the Victorian mourning custom (not that there is ever any sane reasoning involved in death customs in general) of spreading straw in the roadway to muffle the sound of horses’ hooves? Were they afraid of waking the dead, or what?
Comments (15)
Those freak occurences amaze me. I couldn’t toss an icy ball of snow just the right size down a vent pipe if I tried.
lol I had to share (cut n paste w names changed!) parts of your post with a few of my coworkers. I’ve been getting tons of emails and an insane number of phone calls about why we are not closing. I told them they need to quit complaining, that we have nothing compared to what it could be!
my understanding is that a lot of the customs involving funeral processions stem from a desire not to attract the attention of the spirits. otherwise said spirits would get distracted from the body and cause all sorts of havoc rather than following the body into the grave.
hey there, I jjust dont know how you do it… try to stay as warm as you can and it was a good idea to get supplies on monday…try to stay in tomorrow if you can
I hope this brings in some much needed assistance.
We need to spread the word.
Wow, you actually got rain? I like your line that life comes to a halt when the weather warms up. Nothing says happy like a happy husky.
brrr…stay warm – Koji sounds like he is loving it – stay dry too – need vitamin D missing the sunshine. Hugs, Sassy
It’s cold here. Like… -9 F, air temp. I don’t like.
The dogs don’t care if it’s cold. I, on the other hand, don’t like it a bit. Supposed to be like… 45 here in a few days, though. I’ll be happy as hell if that happens!
rain? I didn’t know it got warm enough to rain there.
The wind where you used to live sounds horrible. I can’t imagine being in wind like that. Good luck to Greyfox.
Is it customary to draw the curtains when there’s been a death in a household in America? I suppose muffling the horses was in a similar vein, keeping ongoing life at arm’s length in grief. I don’t know anything about spirits.
I heard on the radio this morning that it was 40 degrees warmer there than it is here in Chicago. Currently we’re at -10.
@Zimbo - Thank you. The author’s words regarding the straw in the roadway was, “out of respect for the dead,” but your idea of keeping intrusive sounds from the mourners makes sense. Our culture is so diverse, I am not aware of any universal, or even particularly widespread, mourning customs. Some of us do not mourn at all, but rather celebrate the lives of the deceased. Prior to WWII, it was common for women to wear black dresses, and for men to wear a black armband, if there was a death in the family, or for the death of a prominent political figure, but that has gone out of vogue now.
@Kallioph - @S2Know - @warweasel - This warming trend has gone a little higher than usual, but it’s not uncommon to get snow and occasionally some rain when one of those horrendous Arctic high pressure areas moves out. It moved south, I see. It will wear itself out, eventually.
It’s so hard for me to imagine what it is like where you live. We are feeling an artic blast moving through Oklahoma right now. Temps around 17F…and tonight is expected to get to 10F, and I think that is too cold! lol I admire you for living in such a place, I would have moved long ago! Stay warm and dry!
@Zimbo - The custom stems from closing the shutters on the house to let the townspeople know that a death had occured.. Before phones, the easies way to get the message out was to close all the shutters and put black mouring wreaths on all doors of the house.
As for the custom of wearing black, it was much more complicated than just wearing black. For instance, if a woman’s husband died, she spent 1 year and 1 day wearing solid black, with a veil, at all times in her own home, which she was not allowed to leave. For the next 1 year and 1 day, she was allowed to leave the house for church and to visit family and close friends and could take the veil off inside her own house or inside the friends houses. For the last 1 year and 1 day, she could forgo the veil, go about her daily business and even wear jewelry – so long as it was black.
Victorians were extremely superstitious about death, and we do many of their customs today without knowing it.