BATTENING DOWN

One more—or yet another, depending on your perspective—blast of winter headed our way, and as usual forecasts are all over the place. They all have in common the likelihood of some snow, a little (and from some forecasters a little more than a little) ice and freezing rain, followed by rain.

And best of all: the whole thing followed by a warmup that will see 60s here over the weekend.

So whatever we get we won’t get affected by for long, at least in its frozen incarnations. The rain, some of it projected to be heavy, will have lingering effects, but we’ll just add those to the still lingering effects of heavier rains (and one big snow) from earlier in winter. The ground is wet and is going to get wetter; the driveway is muddy and is going to get muddier.

But we’re not going to snowed in, at least not for more than a day or so. And if the ice keeps itself to minimal levels, the power should stay on.

Nonetheless, I’m battening down, as I always do. Eater for drinking and flushing all stocked up. Emergency radio—named Heidi by my wife—ready to be turned on. Kerosene heater ready to provide backup heat if needed. Plenty of food for us, for Millard the beagle, and for Lightning, Chester, and Mary Grace, the cats. In an hour or so I’ll move the car to a spot above the worst of the mudway that is now the bottom part of our driveway.

In other words, ready for pretty much whatever comes our way.

And even readier for the much warmer whatever that;s coming after it.

Blackberries Soon

Nearly there!

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Maybe as early as tomorrow (and I will probably find at least one or two that are ready this afternoon), and certainly by Tuesday...Blackberries!.

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Just in time for the Fourth!

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And judging by how productive the plants are this year, plenty of berries for the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh, too.
 

The Snows of Yesterweek

Hard to believe, walking and working in close to 70 degree weather today, that just a few days I was walking and working in very different conditions.

Here's a photo taken during my return to the house on Tuesday, almost a week to the hour after the first flakes began to fall.

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The snow was starting to go then, but it had a ways to go before it would be gone.

I was returning from a snowy stroll to the creek, its banks still heavy with snow, though not so heavy as they had been just a day or two before: