Our water heater finally gave up the ghost after over 17 years of service. That may be putting it too strongly since it was still keeping the water hot but had only become incontinent. We decided not to push our luck, though, and opted for a replacement. A nice and seemingly competent young man handled the job without delay and we are on to the next problem. Our internet service went kaput the week before and we managed to get that problem remedied without too much jump and jive. It was interesting that the plumber had to jump through some hoops unrelated to the water heater. He had to install anti-siphon gizmos on all the outdoor faucets, for one thing. Then he had to install a couple of carbon monoxide detectors in the hall outside the bedrooms. He even had to peek at our toilet tanks to make sure that, well, I’m not sure what he was making sure that. Checking for leaks, maybe. You may be thinking, “Well, he was just running up the tab on us.” Could be, but he seemed like a sincere young man and he explained that these things all were required by the code enforcement Nazis, my word, not his. When he had finished the job, he had to do a virtual inspection with his phone and a code inspector on the other end of the line. He had to crawl up in the attic and let the CI see that, yes, there was sufficient clearance around the vent; that the anti-siphon gizmos were installed; that the detectors, fire and carbon monoxide, were installed. He even had to test them in the virtual presence of the CI. With the way things are going in our country, I think it might be prudent to closely examine the detectors to make sure there are no cameras and/or listening devices. Just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.
February 14…
It has snowed continuously for 24 hours and the temperature on my thermometer when I rolled out of bed this morning was 3.7°. It is now showing 2.3°. The snow doesn’t contain much moisture. I think I could clear the driveway with my leaf blower. It has gotten colder unabated all week long, to the point where the temps in 20’s early in the week look pretty good now. Our birdfeeder is doing a brisk business. I read about a new theory recently. Seems it has been thought that the ice ages were caused by colder winters. The new theory is that they were caused by cooler summers. The thinking is that the cooler summers, something to do with the earth wobbling on its axis, allowed snow to linger all summer in places which then tended to reduce the snow melt the following summer and so on over hundreds of thousands of years. Eventually the snow cover was large enough to reflect sunlight which made it that much cooler during the summer and reduced the melt just that much more. What I was reading didn’t say was why the mile-thick ice covering large areas of the northern hemisphere began to receded. Maybe it was that wobble thing again. Something to mull over as we hunker down and thank our lucky stars for fossil fuels.
February 21…
“But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?” Tis the sun, me thinks, and for the second day in a row. It didn’t even get below freezing last night. Last Sunday night/Monday morning it got down to -8°. The following Tuesday night we got over seven inches of snow. It was snowing when we got up and it snowed all day. Snow isn’t unusual in our part of the world but continuous snow over a 24 hour period is. Now, the snow was light so it didn’t pile up like it sometime does. The weather service said we got 7.4 inches of snow with a moisture content of .38 inches, which sounds about right for SA. I emptied only .16 inches out of the gauge yesterday but I’m going to go with official amount because I think, in this case, it is more accurate. Yesterday afternoon I got out to run water in the pond and the ground was still covered with several inches of snow. Yesterday was the first day we saw the sun for nearly two weeks, except when it peeped out briefly a couple of times in the late afternoon. By dinner time yesterday there had been significant melting. In fact, the snow had for the most part receded to the shady spots on the north sides of trees and buildings. We aren’t complaining. While we got our fill of cold, at least we didn’t have to contend with the blackouts many parts of the state had to endure. We consider ourselves fortunate.
Here are some snow shots taken about this same time of year in 2004. Kids were little then and I was a convenient beast of burden. I got the sled out and pulled Abigail and Parker around the place. Lucky for me they are both off at college now. I also pulled Riley a couple of circuits around the place. She was pretty small then, maybe not quite walking, so she was a light load.
I was in Connecticut for the ICS annual meeting about this time in 2011. There was nearly always snow when I was there but 2011 was on a different scale. I had snowed over a period of weeks, maybe months, without melting and the secondary streets were little canyons. The main streets and highways were cleared because they are good at that in New England. They get lots of practice. Although I had been there for several consecutive years, I still had trouble navigating because the snow was disorienting. One iceberg looks petty much like the next one. I didn’t have a smart phone to assist me then.
February 28…
First place medal
Rebecca cleaned up at a tennis tournament in Lubbock yesterday. She played three matches. The first was against a boy about her size and age, which she won. The second was against a boy smaller and younger and he was pretty much over-matched. The third match was against an older and bigger girl and their match went to a tie-breaker, which Rebecca won and thus won the tournament. We went to the restaurant where Abigail works for lunch. She was working a double shift but was able to eat with us. It was really great to see her again.