Winter continues
27/02/19 05:20
It is 3 degrees Fahrenheit this morning. The forecast is for a high of 17 degrees, which weatherground.com calls “much warmer,” than yesterday. It has been a relatively long spate of cold weather and the snow and ice still have a good grip on our town. I have noticed some changes, however.
Not everyone is staying inside. Folks who bundle up and get out report that they feel better than they felt cooped up in their houses. Meetings that were canceled due to the weather in the first few days of cold temperatures are now progressing. We’re slowly adjusting to the realities of colder temperatures.
This isn’t the coldest winter in my experience. I’ve lived through years with colder absolute temperatures and long stretches of cold. Things might be a bit unusual for this location, but mostly it is just a case of living in South Dakota in the winter. It gets cold.
Next week is spring break at our local university and I’ve got friends who are heading off to various warmer places. One friend is going to Las Vegas for the weekend. Another is heading to Florida next week. Other friends are coming home from a vacation in Jamaica this week. The weather will definitely feel cold for them when they get off if the airplane. And, of course, we have quite a few snowbirds in our congregation who have retreated to warmer places for weeks or months depending on their schedules and budgets.
I’m not unhappy dealing with the cold weather. It can be a bit of a hassle. Some days I’ve had to shovel twice in the same day. I forget the many days when I haven’t had to shovel at all. The wind picked up yesterday and some snow blew back into the drive, but not enough to cause a problem. One of our garage doors seems to be suffering from the cold and is a bit quirky when it goes back down. It will probably need a service call sometime in the spring, but it is working enough to open and close so the car can spend the night inside.
Things are much easier with modern cars equipped with electronic ignition and fuel injection. We have gotten used to just going out and starting our cars without having to plug them in. The batteries in the cars have sufficient energy to crank the engines when they are cold and so far we haven’t had any major vehicle issues. I did have a little gel in the diesel in the pickup, but I was on my way to the shop for routine service and once the filters were changed and a bit of additive poured in the tank, thing are going smoothly. The shop did say that they are seeing a lot more diesel vehicles with gelled fuel. They had to go rescue a tow truck last week when it experienced the problem.
And I have been keeping track with the blog of a person who lives in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, where is is consistently colder than it is here. It’s been down to -40 there this winter and most of the time it has been below zero. Yesterday it got up to 8 degrees Fahrenheit and he described the weather as balmy and posted a picture of himself outside in a cap and t shirt. I still need a sweatshirt when it is only 8 degrees. I’m likely to keep my parka even if it gets up to 17 degrees today. I’ll probably shed it tomorrow if it gets to the forecast 28 degrees and we are loading firewood.
This weekend will be the last firewood delivery of the season for us. We’ll be out of firewood and when the weather gives us a break we’ll start splitting for next year’s deliveries. I think the pile was a bit smaller this year than it has been in some years, but we had a good stock. But the cold weather has increased demand and we’ve done our best to keep up. We know that we aren’t the solution to everyone’s heating problems, but we like to do what we can to help. A couple of our volunteers have been going above and beyond the usual and have really helped people who were hurting for firewood. They keep their equipment operating in the cold weather and seem to keep themselves warm by loading trailers. I’m really grateful for their dedication and selflessness.
Helping neighbors has long been a part of winter survival on the plains. When it is below zero you don’t drive past a breakdown without checking to see if help is on the way. I’ve got my winter survival gear in my car. And we are way more connected than we were years ago. Cell phones work in most places and almost everyone has one. I remember driving on Dakota roads in the winter back in the 1970’s and hoping that there would be a ranch nearby with a good CB antenna if I were to slide into the ditch. The CBs that we had in our car were only good for 3 to 5 miles, but we carried them anyway because they could be helpful in a pinch. I don’t think I’ve used a CB radio in the last 25 years. We don’t own one anymore.
So we get through winter. Spring will come. Friday is March. The old saying that is if March comes in like a lion, it goes out like a lamb and it appears it will come in like a lion. The high temperatures probably won’t make it into the teens over the weekend and the lows will be more than ten degrees below zero. Then again, the old sayings don’t always apply. The groundhog didn’t see his shadow this year, which is supposed to mean an early spring. And even if he had seen his shadow it is suppose to mean only 6 weeks more winter and we’ll be at that date in a couple of weeks.
So lace up your boots and zip up your parka and get outside and get some fresh air. We can’t wait for warmer temperatures to get on with our lives. In the meantime, the seed catalogues have arrived and the crops advertised look delicious and i’m hungering for a real home-grown tomato. It’ll be a while.
Not everyone is staying inside. Folks who bundle up and get out report that they feel better than they felt cooped up in their houses. Meetings that were canceled due to the weather in the first few days of cold temperatures are now progressing. We’re slowly adjusting to the realities of colder temperatures.
This isn’t the coldest winter in my experience. I’ve lived through years with colder absolute temperatures and long stretches of cold. Things might be a bit unusual for this location, but mostly it is just a case of living in South Dakota in the winter. It gets cold.
Next week is spring break at our local university and I’ve got friends who are heading off to various warmer places. One friend is going to Las Vegas for the weekend. Another is heading to Florida next week. Other friends are coming home from a vacation in Jamaica this week. The weather will definitely feel cold for them when they get off if the airplane. And, of course, we have quite a few snowbirds in our congregation who have retreated to warmer places for weeks or months depending on their schedules and budgets.
I’m not unhappy dealing with the cold weather. It can be a bit of a hassle. Some days I’ve had to shovel twice in the same day. I forget the many days when I haven’t had to shovel at all. The wind picked up yesterday and some snow blew back into the drive, but not enough to cause a problem. One of our garage doors seems to be suffering from the cold and is a bit quirky when it goes back down. It will probably need a service call sometime in the spring, but it is working enough to open and close so the car can spend the night inside.
Things are much easier with modern cars equipped with electronic ignition and fuel injection. We have gotten used to just going out and starting our cars without having to plug them in. The batteries in the cars have sufficient energy to crank the engines when they are cold and so far we haven’t had any major vehicle issues. I did have a little gel in the diesel in the pickup, but I was on my way to the shop for routine service and once the filters were changed and a bit of additive poured in the tank, thing are going smoothly. The shop did say that they are seeing a lot more diesel vehicles with gelled fuel. They had to go rescue a tow truck last week when it experienced the problem.
And I have been keeping track with the blog of a person who lives in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, where is is consistently colder than it is here. It’s been down to -40 there this winter and most of the time it has been below zero. Yesterday it got up to 8 degrees Fahrenheit and he described the weather as balmy and posted a picture of himself outside in a cap and t shirt. I still need a sweatshirt when it is only 8 degrees. I’m likely to keep my parka even if it gets up to 17 degrees today. I’ll probably shed it tomorrow if it gets to the forecast 28 degrees and we are loading firewood.
This weekend will be the last firewood delivery of the season for us. We’ll be out of firewood and when the weather gives us a break we’ll start splitting for next year’s deliveries. I think the pile was a bit smaller this year than it has been in some years, but we had a good stock. But the cold weather has increased demand and we’ve done our best to keep up. We know that we aren’t the solution to everyone’s heating problems, but we like to do what we can to help. A couple of our volunteers have been going above and beyond the usual and have really helped people who were hurting for firewood. They keep their equipment operating in the cold weather and seem to keep themselves warm by loading trailers. I’m really grateful for their dedication and selflessness.
Helping neighbors has long been a part of winter survival on the plains. When it is below zero you don’t drive past a breakdown without checking to see if help is on the way. I’ve got my winter survival gear in my car. And we are way more connected than we were years ago. Cell phones work in most places and almost everyone has one. I remember driving on Dakota roads in the winter back in the 1970’s and hoping that there would be a ranch nearby with a good CB antenna if I were to slide into the ditch. The CBs that we had in our car were only good for 3 to 5 miles, but we carried them anyway because they could be helpful in a pinch. I don’t think I’ve used a CB radio in the last 25 years. We don’t own one anymore.
So we get through winter. Spring will come. Friday is March. The old saying that is if March comes in like a lion, it goes out like a lamb and it appears it will come in like a lion. The high temperatures probably won’t make it into the teens over the weekend and the lows will be more than ten degrees below zero. Then again, the old sayings don’t always apply. The groundhog didn’t see his shadow this year, which is supposed to mean an early spring. And even if he had seen his shadow it is suppose to mean only 6 weeks more winter and we’ll be at that date in a couple of weeks.
So lace up your boots and zip up your parka and get outside and get some fresh air. We can’t wait for warmer temperatures to get on with our lives. In the meantime, the seed catalogues have arrived and the crops advertised look delicious and i’m hungering for a real home-grown tomato. It’ll be a while.