Petros - bipolar winter storm

Not much happening around here, accept for weather.

And we've been getting it all: rain, snow, wind, sun, bitter cold, bright sun, blue skies, mild temps.

Sometimes all in the same day.  

It's like Mother Natures is subscribing to Random acts of Mindless.  Really.

Take winter storm Petros. 

Wednesday it was in high 40s and we got 1.5" of rain over 24 hours.  Around sunset the west opened up allowing the sun create marvelous double rainbows to the east.

Later that evening, as the eye of this "land hurricane" rolled over us, my barometer entered the lowest reading I've seen here: 29.09!

Thursday they were all hyper about 4-6" of heavy snow, but all we got a little ice that quickly melted and a trace of snow.  Now, Friday, the storm is gone and we're getting a bit of lake effect snow from Lake Eerie.

We've had a couple of whiteouts this morning, but they were brief - and beautiful.

Going down to the 20s tonight, into the 40s tomorrow and then Sunday?  60s.

Yep.  No rhyme or reason to the weather this winter.

Meanwhile, Mom and I have been out and about.  Took us a while to feel comfortable going out in public after that bad run of illness in January, especially Mom.  But you can't pull a Howard Hughes and try to hide from germs.

Next week I'll be taking her back to the fitness center and ease her back into her exercise routine.

Otherwise, lots of nothing right now and I'm enjoying it.  Eating basement greens, planting some seeds, catching up on some HBO freebie movies on the DVR.  Yep.  Right now doing nothing is doing me good.

And when I run out of movies, there's always the weather to watch.  No?  LOL

ION - Positively NOT entertaining!

The frequent warnings were really hyper about storm ION.  It was huge stretching, once again, from Mexico to Maine.  They had predicted we would get 6-8" of snow in our area, but the warmth persisted and, instead, we got about 1/2" of rain.  Then it all froze and got covered with a couple inches of snow.  Temps went from high 30s to single digits by this morning.  It's still dropping and the wind is getting fierce.

It's really treacherous what with the ice and the wind chill.  If you don't have to go outside, don't.  As bad as today is, they are predicting -11 tonight (as opposed to earlier predictions of -17). Tomorrow will only get single digits.

Meanwhile, during the nice weather Saturday, the good neighbors brought over their discarded Christmas tree for me to use as a winter roost for the birds.  I never got around to driving in a post to tie it to this Fall, what with the early snow, etc.  So I found I could just jamb the tree between the frozen covered glider and the frozen metal window well I use as a plant stand.  It's been holding up in spite of the winds.

The little birds are already using it for cover.  Bigger birds have also found it.  I saw the marsh hawk trying to get at something deep in the branches yesterday, but didn't seem to have much luck.  Ah well, everybody needs to eat.

Today and tomorrow I'll be tucked inside, warm and dry.  Yesterday I took Mother out for groceries so she is all settled in too.  As for me - it's soup and a fire day (in between household chores which know NO type of weather).

Hang in there ... 40s predicted later in the week.  Sheesh what a winter this is.

Gemini

All previous snows from other storms have been melted and washed away from the warm winds and sprinkles of rain from the pre-show from Gemini.

Then, last night, the leading edge of the main storm arrived and we've had an inch of rain since midnight.

This could have been so much worse.  But it started to warm up Thursday and Friday was even warmer with a steady breeze (mid-40F).  By evening the ice dams in the gutters were melted/cleared so last night's rain didn't back up anywhere; went straight to the downspouts.  Yay.  That had been my big worry.

Right now it is 50+F at 6 am and as you can see by the current radar, there is a TON more water to come (they're predicting 4").  I'm sure there's going to be some flooding over the next couple of days. I just hope that we don't get any of that pink/ice.  Ice is the worst.  Hopefully that part of the storm will arc over us.  Fingers crossed.  Good grief! This is a huge storm - from Mexico to Maine!

If you're out this weekend doing your last minute Christmas shopping, drive carefully everyone.

Electra - fried

Another weekend, another snowstorm.

The 1st pic shows that by Friday we'd gotten out from under both Cleon and then Dion.

The 2nd pic - Saturday, as we 'enjoyed' the dumpings of Electra.

Electra wasn't nice.  Not at all.

The snow piled up and early on during the storm I snowblowed 3-4" of rather dry snow.  No prob. Then the temps crept up and I had to go out and do another 2+" of heavier snow.  My blower isn't that powerful and it stalled a couple of times with that wet snow.

But it kept coming. Within another 2 hours we got another 3" of heavy snow so I had to bundle up and blow it too.

I can't let snow sit - as it compresses under it's own weight and wetness, it makes it impossible for me to clean off my own driveway, so when there's a snowstorm, I'm the only one in the neighborhood out there blowing while everyone else waits for the end of the storm.

Lucky them.

Anyway, I'm pleased to say that because of my persistence, when the temps came up even more, my driveway was clear when the RAIN came.  It rained for over an hour - washing all the pretty snow off the trees and making slush.

Then that night, the slush froze solid.  Now there's a thick frozen crust on the snow making it impossible to even get a snow shovel into it.  Clever me - there was no slush on my driveway to freeze. Yay.

And, since temps will be totally frigid for the next 3-4 days, what we have now will stay until it melts on Thursday (40s & rain).

So today, I'm rewarding myself for all that snowblowing yesterday by kicking back, watching TV and enjoying yet another pot of soup (turkey/bean).

Y'know, it's only Dec 15 and we've had many snows since Nov 12th, of which 5 events were large, named storms.

Gosh, can't wait to see what WINTER will be like.

How about you?  Getting pounded by the early winter weather?

Saturn-ails-ya?

Not so much!

Winter storm Saturn crept in last night - no fanfare to wake me up - no wind, no sleet rattling against the window flashing.  Nope - just a quiet fall of very pretty snow (3-4" max).

And talk about considerate!  Look at the driveway - since we'd just had 2 sunny days, the warmth from the blacktop didn't allow any accumulation.


Now that's MY kind of storm.

Meanwhile, I've been a busy girl in the kitchen for the last week.

For those of you who don't visit the Chef's Table page (top of right sidebar), I've been experimenting with water kefir.  Two (actually 3) batches so far and I'm hooked! (click the links for pics, etc.)

Kefir 1
Kefir 2
Kefir 3
Kefir 4

Scary Christmas and a Crappy New Year

Winter storm FREYR

Christmas was scary this year. I woke up Tuesday morning and found that the entire left side of my body was numb - from the top of my head down to my toes. After fretting about it for a couple of hours, I called my GP and she told me to get to the emergency room right away. Well, okay. But I wasn't enthused about it. Luckily my neighbor was home and he drove me there.

Long story short, after 5 HOURS in the ER waiting for a doctor, I was admitted for observation and discharged the next day. All they did was rule out stroke and heart attack. As for the continuing random numbness? "You'll have to follow up with your own doctor...." My doctor, of course, didn't know WHAT to make of it so she had sent me to the hospital, remember? They didn't care. Hospitals today aren't like on TV. They don't really seem to care about sick people.

The numbness is random all over my body and usually occurs when I'm either sleeping or resting/sitting down. While I'm active I seem to be okay. Tuesday morning I was scared to death. I'm still scared, but right now I'm just flippin' angry at the cavalier attitude the hospital showed for my condition. They couldn't discharge me fast enough after they ruled out stroke. Heck, they didn't even bother to wheel me off the floor and downstairs like they used to. Nope. I had to carry all my stuff and hoof it out of the hospital myself. For a hospital named MERCY, it sure didn't have much of THAT to go around. Pah!

So now I have to pursue this issue on my own. My doctor suggests a neurologist take a look. Or an endocrinologist. Or some other -ologist. Can she recommend someone?  No.  %$#@*!

Why stop there? Why not a faith healer or witch doctor?  How can they be any worse than our great American medical profession?  *sigh*  Well, at least I'm angry.  Angry is better than being scared any day of the week.  Christmas was a bust and the New Year is not starting out well.

Oh look.  Another winter storm to clean up after to boot.  Euclid socked me at the hospital and it needed a neighbor with a jeep to get me home.  Freyr (who comes up with these winter storm NAMES?) dumped 6" of snow last night.  I've been digging out since this morning.  Oh well, I'm sure the exercise is good for me, right?  One thing for sure, I won't be asking advice from any d^mn doctor!