Conversation With Darling Daughter

My daughter managed (probably because no phone would dare thwart her) to get through to my cell phone last night.  She had tales to tell and threats of possible disconnect did not deter her.

It seems she was walking to the store yesterday and went to cross the street, whereupon the wind blew so hard, it stopped her (and everyone else crossing) in the middle of the street and proceeded to blow her backward. 

She said people in cars waiting for the light to turn were laughing. 

Then she walked into the coffee shop to get something hot to drink, only to find that the metal clasp on her purse had frozen shut on her half mile walk from home.  She had to breathe on it to thaw it out and get it open.  The girl working the register was apparently fascinated, never having seen anyone's purse freeze shut before. 

Chicago at -2 with full on wind gusts of 40+ mph. Gotta love it when the jet stream comes to town. Heh.

Posted by: Teresa in Weather at 11:38 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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Let It Snow

One of the few weather predictions we seem to be able to count on... when they say it's going to snow, they are always right. They haven't missed yet.

Yesterday the prediction was between 8 and 16 inches.  We got about 8.

I have been sitting in front of my computer working most of the day while my husband has been outside trying to move snow.  (yes working - we had an office computer meltdown yesterday - I've spent nearly all day helping to get things fixed up and running again for all the jobs that need doing this weekend).

I did take a break and take a few pictures, mostly from inside the house because I've been too lazy to put my boots and coat on.

Out my front door, this is what I see



Looks pretty nice doesn't it.  Then there's the back deck where we have a cute little bistro table and chairs...



Sorry, the window is a bit dirty.  Didn't realize that until I uploaded the pic. 

This one is my view out the office door.  All those tree limbs are getting hard to see.



Well, I did step outside my side door because I knew you'd all want to see my grill being buried under the snow.



But since they are predicting at least 8 more inches of snow tonight, my husband not only cleaned off the driveway and the sidewalks, he also worked on "shoveling" the roof.  Much easier than letting it go and dealing with the effects of ice dams later.



Mostly snow is just lots of work. It can be very pretty though.



Now it's time to make some hot tea, snuggle under a blanket and watch a bit of television.  Tomorrow it will be my turn to do some shoveling.

Posted by: Teresa in Weather at 04:04 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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More Fun With Wires

The dudes who clear branches for the local electric company dropped by today. I wouldn't have known, except they were leaving my driveway as I was coming back from Starbucks this morning. (no I probably would not have noticed the changes in branch stacking - there are too many floating about the yard so I'm ignoring them)

They cleaned up the large pile of branches off the power line... the LIVE power line... and pulled the broken phone line somewhat off the ground by wrapping it around the pole in our yard.

Supposedly tomorrow the guys who reattach these things to the tops of the poles are supposed to drop by and put the wires back up where they belong. Then the electrician has to visit and reattach the meter box to the house.

Depending on when all this happens they may be playing in the snow. From the NOAA, this is our forecast*** for tomorrow:

Friday: Snow, mainly after 3pm. The snow could be heavy at times. High near 29. Light wind becoming east between 10 and 13 mph. Winds could gust as high as 24 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 5 to 9 inches possible.

Friday Night: Snow. The snow could be heavy at times. Low around 12. North wind around 14 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 3 to 7 inches possible.

Ah lovely - anywhere from 8 to 16 inches of snow. And that gusty wind thing... just what we need. Will they look at the weather channel in the morning and say "Screw it. we'll wait for summer!"?

Or will they get distracted in the middle of the job and have a snowball fight? After all the guy way up in the air has a real advantage if he can collect enough snow.

Hmmm... might be interesting.

We shall see.

*** why is it I always forget the "e" in the middle of "forecast" whenever I type it. I know it's there yet every single time I type the word, I skip it and have to go back to put it in. Most annoying.

Posted by: Teresa in Weather at 10:44 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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If I Was Eloquent

I would be able to write something called

Ode to a Generator



During our recent power outage, this little guy kept us going beautifully.  I think it deserves an ode, but that type of prose is beyond me.

Of course so then does my husband.  The man who knew how to wire things so the generator could be used to its full potential during those hours with no electricity.  The man knows how to create cables, how to run motors on the generator without ruining them (there is apparently a trick to this that I did not know), ensuring that things are safely connected and listening critically to how the motor runs the entire time it's on...

Who knew it could be so complicated.  That you don't just turn it on, plug stuff in and walk away.  I think he has osmosis where this stuff is concerned.  He seems to just "know" it.  He will claim it's through trial and error and lots of reading... but I think it's got to be osmosis. 

We were able to use this lovely little machine to alternately, run the furnace, the hot water heater, the water pump (necessary when you have well and septic for your water supply), the refrigerator, and any lights we needed (we didn't turn on anything high voltage of course).  Except for the lights these all had to run separately, but just the fact that they could run was most excellent.

There were a few harrowing moments when it started to bog down.  That was Saturday night when the temperature was about 15 degrees.  My husband had read that these generators can have difficulty with ice build up in the carburetor... so we moved it into the garage, opened a couple of doors and a window.  For some reason that was adequate to make it start behaving well again.

We bought this back in 2000 after a power outage caused a basement flood.  This is the first time we've used it, outside of the test runs.  I will say, it performed beautifully.  I'm very glad we had it or we might have frozen into Popsicles in our house.    

It's a wonderful thing this generator.  It goes without saying that my husband is wonderful. 

Posted by: Teresa in Weather at 10:19 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Ice Storm... Of Course There are Pictures

Look what a little rain can do when it decides to freeze on the trees.  We drove home in this rain.  The roads were not slick it was not sleet - it was rain.  But...

At just the right temp, it turns into ice on plants.  Somewhere around midnight last Thursday we started hearing branches break.  It sounds like a shotgun and then you hear them fall.  We kept jumping out of bed just in case one of those times it was a tree from our back yard headed toward our bedroom. 

The next morning, this was the front yard.



If you look closely, the largest pile of branches in the very back is on the power lines.  At that time the electric box was still on the house - a couple hours later another branch fell and ripped it away. 

Here's a closer view of the branch pile that the electric company still needs to clear away.  (we don't mess with electrical wires here even if they do seem to be dead!)



When I looked out the side window this was what I saw.



That's looking through the window so it's a bit fuzzy.

Of course, the roads were a mess too.  Here's one example.



There are more over at Smugmug.  I took a bunch while walking with my blackberry.  There was so much ice and crap pelting us, I was afraid I'd ruin my good camera.  Then I took some others with my Nikon. 

Pretty?  Maybe.  As long as you have heat and a computer...

Blackberry shots are here.

Nikon shots are here.

Stay warm!

PS. I should note that while many of the branches don't look very large - most could not be moved until they were cut into smaller bits by the chainsaw.   Looks are very deceiving.  

Posted by: Teresa in Weather at 11:24 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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We Have Power!!!

At least for the moment. The electrician isn't here yet. I don't want to fire up the computer until that's done. But at least the heater is running!!!

Posted by: Teresa in Weather at 04:34 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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We Have A Siting!!!

***I can't figure out how to reply in my own comments using the bb. It's a display issue when I go to the comment page*** We do have linemen on the street. We did call the city about the electric box & yes we had to call an electrician. He's supposed to get over here about 6 (we hope). Now we're just waiting.

Posted by: Teresa in Weather at 03:17 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Welcome Home

Got back just in time for the ice storm. No power. No phone. No internet. Trees down everywhere. Electric box ripped off our house. We are on the electric company list so we may get power back in a few weeks. Oh joy. Brought to you via my blackberry. At least we were able to get out to the stores. Especially since we were gone and hadn't managed to pick up emergency supplies. *sigh*

Posted by: Teresa in Weather at 02:30 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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