Ode to Snow?
“Snow – Snow- Snow- I want to wash my hands, my face and
hair in SNOW …”
Not so much.
With all due respect to Rosemary, Bing, Vera and Danny, and Irving Berlin, I’m over Snow.
With all due respect to Rosemary, Bing, Vera and Danny, and Irving Berlin, I’m over Snow.
At least for this season.
On February 16, I was in Tennessee, visiting my mother. We
had two inches of sleet there.
And that was bad enough, but back home in Kentucky, more than ten inches of snow fell at our house, followed by three more inches a few days later. And COLD. Both Tennessee and Kentucky had some overnight subzero temps, and it stayed continuously below freezing during the day with little or no sun. The snow lingered. It thawed a tiny little bit during the day IF the sun shone, but refroze every night. By the time I came home over a week later, the shiniest, slickest coating of thick ice (that I’ve ever seen) topped the still deep snow.
And that was bad enough, but back home in Kentucky, more than ten inches of snow fell at our house, followed by three more inches a few days later. And COLD. Both Tennessee and Kentucky had some overnight subzero temps, and it stayed continuously below freezing during the day with little or no sun. The snow lingered. It thawed a tiny little bit during the day IF the sun shone, but refroze every night. By the time I came home over a week later, the shiniest, slickest coating of thick ice (that I’ve ever seen) topped the still deep snow.
And it lingered. How many times have I heard this old saying?
“If the snow hangs around, it’s waiting around for another snow storm.”
Look at the icy sheen on the snow!
Monster icicles!
Well, there’s a reason that sayings become adages.
On March 3rd, we drove to Nashville for the day,
leaving behind clear roads, but yards still covered in snow.
In this process, I learned a new phrase: Ice
Damming. The heavy snow piled on our upstairs deck had nowhere to go when the
rains came, except inside. We currently have a big water stain on our living
room ceiling. But it, at least, is paint-able. A friend of ours was not so fortunate. Her
roof collapsed and water came pouring into her house, causing thousands of dollars’
in damage. The national news posted similar events all over the storm affected
country.
Heavy rains set in on our drive home, and by the next morning, most of our snow had disappeared.
Here, the joke became … if there’s still snow on the ground the weekend
we Spring Forward for DST, at least we’ll be able to see the snow after six p.m.!
A couple days later with the snow gone and the rain finally ending, it felt like Winter MIGHT be drawing to a close. Come on SPRING!
A couple days later with the snow gone and the rain finally ending, it felt like Winter MIGHT be drawing to a close. Come on SPRING!
But no.
On Monday, March 9 (MARCH, for heaven’s sake), Kentucky
caught another Winter Storm. Overnight, it dumped a foot of snow on my house! A
FOOT OF SNOW. IN MARCH. (Some communities got 16 inches, some got 25 inches!). As a retired teacher, I empathize with the school systems who must cope with make up days, testing schedules, and children who have missed nearly two weeks of school!
(FB)
We haven’t had this much snow in several years. At least
not in one storm. It was a wet snow, unlike the first one, and good snowman-making material. We never make one,
but I enjoyed all the amazing pictures posted on FB. My favorite was the
re-staging - ‘Snowman style’ - of raising the flag at Iwo Jima! Folks never fail to amaze me with their creativity.
(FB)
We shoveled the deck this time (Yep, we learned our lesson!). And this snow was followed by sun and slightly
warmer temps. It didn’t last nearly as long.
We've had more snow than we're used to in Kentucky, but we are mighty thankful we don't live in Boston. Much of New England had
one big snowstorm after another - a true Snow-pocalypse - with nearly five or six feet of the white stuff on the ground at a time. The cyber pictures were interesting!
(FB)
(FB)
In the interval between the end of the snow and some drying up of the yard, I cleaned and straightened my screened-in porch (can NOT wait). I scouted the yard for emerging bulbs (and found them) and picked up fallen limbs from the storm. Definite A-N-T-I-C-I-P-A-T-I-O-N of warmer weather to come! Our local weatherman blogger says we’re not out of the woods yet; there’s more cold to come. BUT I think I see a spring light at the end of the winter tunnel!
Come on, Mother Nature! We’re SO ready for SPRING!
