The Plowman Came Again

This morning we retrieved our car from below the bridge. The snow is melting fast, though without the plow, movement would have been restricted for several more days. As it is, the road is so mushy, I may have to leave my chains on to traverse Cedar Ridge Road.

Now that we are free, we're thinking of heading to town to break this cabin-fever.

We're all thinking we'd best get to a town.

The Big Melt

Snow is melting fast now. It's raining and there is a solid wall of drips coming from the edge of the snow hanging over my gutters.

That said, it's still going to take a while to melt all this snow. With any luck enough of it will be gone by Monday morning that I'll be able to drive to work.

We will be on the lookout for flooding if this melt happens very swiftly.

Our neighbors on top of Green Mountain report snow that is chest-deep and large Douglas Fir trees snapping at the main stem. Also, they had one collapsed building.
They said this storm compares only with the storm of 1968 for overall intensity.

My sheet-metal shed collapsed too. I expect more stories of damage as we begin to get out more.

More Winter Scenes

Our snow peaked by Christmas Eve, since then it has rained and snowed in such a way that we're roughly maintaining the existing snow depth. 

The forecast has called for rain today, and boy were they right. Only the rain we're getting is really white and it's sticking to the trees.

All joking aside, we are currently getting another dose of snow, but we are assured that temperatures will climb as the week rolls on. 

We're actually starting to hope that's true, so we can resume our social lives. Our car is parked about a mile away, because the deep slush has made Cedar Ridge Road impassable to any Saturn SL sedan that I know of. It would take a fairly special or specialized vehicle to navigate this road at the moment.

So, here we are eating our way through our ample pantry and amusing ourselves such as we may with our Christmas games and toys. 

Here is a slide show to amuse you:

Rescued The Stovepipe

Yesterday I was fretting about the stovepipe because I saw that it was already bending under the weight of snow sliding slowly down over it from above. After about a day of thinking about how hard or impossible it would be to reach the snow and pull it off the stovepipe and its struts, I finally had an epiphany: use the hot-water faucet we had installed outside to melt the snow from above the pipe.

This picture was taken after I cut the snow away from the struts.

This I did. First, I pull the hose out from under 2 feet of snow, which was pretty easy. Then I had to remember where I last laid the ladder. Not so easy. I had to wander around the house for a while, thinking laddery thoughts, until, like a water witch, I sensed it beneath me.

I had to do a little substantially more digging to get that one out, but it was nothing I couldn't do with my hands.

Finally I mounted the roof, hose in hand, hot water turned on. And it wouldn't flow. 

Naturally in all this freezing weather the hose was iced-up. It wasn't irretrievably frozen though,  so after bending most of the hose little by little over my knee, water began to trickle out of it. Slowly but surely the rate increased and I began cutting the snowy tumor from the ailing patient. With hot water coming out of the "Jet" setting of our nozzle attachment, it was like performing laser surgery.

When I had removed enough snow from above the struts, I saw and heard the tension release as the stovepipe rebounded a little toward its original, vertical position. It will not return to truly vertical though until we replace the struts, which are now shaped more like a longbow than a flag pole.

Liberation

I have gazed upon my redeemer, and its name is Caterpillar. 

A charming fellow by the name of Badger drove a machine up our driveway today that looked a bit like this:

With this machine under him the snow on our driveway gave way as though it was air. 

We now have a path out of here, and we may just be able to keep our holiday appointments.

Beetle Buried

'nuff said.

An Inch An Hour

It's snowing at a rate of an inch per hour right now, and has been for about 30 minutes. I think we'll crest 20 inches soon. :|

This is getting weird. I'm having thoughts about the next ice age, when it's due etc...

Heidi has been having quite a bit of success in visualizing what she wants to achieve lately and having it come to pass. One of the more recent things she said she wanted was snow to halfway up our front door. 

Now it looks as though that may actually happen. If it does, I'm retiring. She can just wish us up a few million dollars to live on.

Nineteen Inches and Rising

Snow update: This morning's measurement is 19"
The chickens are all still alive, as are the bunnies, who look a little too at home on the snow.

The Beetle is more enshrouded than ever, almost completely buried. Pictures will be forthcoming.

I wasn't kneeling

Here is another gauge of the depth: My pants being snowy nearly to the knees and all I did was walk to the chickens, the rabbits and the woodpile, all of which are in some danger of being subsumed.

More Collage

Drifts higher than before.

Snowstorm '08 Update

From top left, clockwise:
1. Rubble pile of snow in front of our south-facing windows represents snow that fell by Saturday morning and slid off the roof.

2. Twelve inch ruler in the snow at capacity. My thumb and finger indentations are all that allowed the camera to see the ruler.

3. Curving snow cascading in slow-motion from the south roof, creating an ever smaller gap between the roof snow and the ground snow.

4. The fog on this quilting ruler demonstrates that it was recently buried in 13.25 inches of snow.

5. A peek out the south window this morning shows the rubble pile (from image 1) has been smoothed into a "snow dune".

6. Looking directly at the south windows, a giant jaw of snow appears to be clamping down on our little cottage.

7. Last nights windswept snow piled up against our front door as much as 8.5 inches.

8. This morning finds the Beetle even more immobilized than before.

9. Remember the Japanese lantern from this Heidicoaster post? It's in there.

Record Snow Depth

After a medium-length debate about who should have to take the measurement, Heidi showed her true grit, dedication to science and proved once and for all that she truly has Swedish blood coursing through her veins by dashing out into the snowstorm that is raging tonight to plunge her quilting grid ruler into the snow and establish a depth of 15 inches!

Fort Bale During The Great Snowstorm of '08

Picasa v. 3 offers enhanced collage functionality.

Look closely and you will see a glacier of snow roughly 10" high slowly sliding from the roof.
You will see our little Saturn parked low on the driveway because even with chains "it warn't worth the wrestle".
You will see my Beetle immobilized by the snow.
You will see the trampoline bulging beneath the weight, next to a mountain of roof-slide that reaches as high as the trampoline and runs the length of our house.
You will see the once beautiful flower-garden, frozen and wrecked by glacial debris. In the foreground is the hollyhock where just a couple weeks ago I thought the Praying Mantis female could safely spend the winter. Now I have doubts.

In the bottom left corner, the sun breaks on the side of Green Mountain, revealing a forest that's been nearly whited-out.

And, as I compose this post, beautiful flakes are lightly beginning to fall.

SuperTuna Alcohol Stove

Last year I was fascinated with the Heineken Penny Alcohol Stove. This year I'm enchanted with the SuperCat, or in my case, the SuperTuna Alcohol Stove.

The SuperCat-style stove has the advantage of simplicity, in that you don't need to cut or create a lid. It also requires no additional hardware to stand your pan on, as the stove itself has the strength to hold any normally weighted pan.

The SuperCat is made from Fancy Feast cat food cans. I borrowed a tool for punching the holes that is too large for those, but perfect for tuna cans. So, I expeditiously adopted the tuna can as my can of choice.

Here you can see the SuperTuna in action:

And here are the yummy results after just one and one half "charges" of alcohol (the vegetables were frozen)

Snowstorm

This year's snow appears to be shaping up as much colder than any prior year that I've lived in Amboy.
Ironically, the backup battery on my weather station is dead, so I can't give specifics. (Arghh! I have more batteries on order.)

You can see a couple of the snow pictures at here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/ZimFam/Snowstorm2008#

I'll upload more as I get them.

Finale Notepad

I just started playing around with Finale Notepad 2009. In about 15 minutes I made a little ditty from scratch that sounds about 100 times better than I thought it would. (Note, this is a highly subjective assessment based on a presupposition that my first composition would sound hideous.)

My "score" includes Piano and Oboe. I originally chose to include B-flat trumpet, voice and drum set, but as yet I'm not sure how to add notes to those without overcomplicating the score. However, adding notes is exceedingly easy using the software.

Anyway, I'm going to suggest that any of my readers who have an interest in composing music should give this a try. If you decide you love it, it's only $10 to buy.

http://www.finalemusic.com/NotePad/default.aspx