Friday, January 3, 2014

From the sewing room window

What a crazy day we had today (Friday)! Last night the wind started blowing from the south. That was a good thing, in that it meant warmer temperatures. But since we had several inches of loose, powdery snow, it also meant there would be some drifting. 

"Some drifting" turned out to be quite an understatement! By morning, the winds had gotten pretty strong, and there was considerable drifting. I found it hard to believe that our school wasn't starting 2 hours late, as were some others. Then those others started closing. Finally, our school got scheduled to close at 10:30. By that time, our weather had been upgraded to a 'blizzard warning'!

Since Courtney's mommy was working, and the roads were already terrible at her other grandma's where she had been planning to go after school, Daddy called me to see if she could come here. That was good by me, especially since she hadn't been here this week for her usual Tuesday-with-Grandma. So Daddy went to pick her up and bring her here. Meanwhile, the power went out. When they got here, much to Courtney's disappointment, Daddy decided it would be better for her to go back with him to the dairy farm where they had a generator and the house there would still be heated. We had no idea how long the power would be off. So her visit here was very brief.

They hadn't even gotten over there yet when the power came back on. That was a good thing, because to add a little craziness to the day, it turned out that the generator wasn't working. Anyway, she stayed there with Daddy, Grandpa and Grandpa's brothers, because visibility was poor, and the roads... and particularly our driveway... were a mess.

By that time, I hadn't yet gotten my blog post ready for today. Alas, I still couldn't do it after the power came back on, because the internet connection was down. It remained so until late afternoon. Ugh.

I did take some photos around noon. I wasn't about to go outside to take any, so these are from my sewing room window. They don't do justice to the drifting, but you can see it somewhat. You can, however, see the snowdrifts that resulted.





The wind has gone down considerably as I write this tonight, and Daddy has already been here with the tractor and snowblower so that Grandpa could get in the driveway. The good news is that the temperature is now 32°... ABOVE zero! :)  The bad news is that the warmth is very short-lived. The wind will be turning back to the north overnight, blow all weekend (no doubt rearranging the snow again), and by Monday the day's HIGH temperature is only supposed to be MINUS 16°. Now that's downright COLD! How cold is it? So COLD that our governor has already cancelled school for the entire state of Minnesota on Monday!

7 comments:

annie dee said...

Photos of snow are pretty. But temps are not. Are these from the new camera?

Grandma G said...

No, they're not. I'm still learning how to use that one, and I'm pretty slow. I need lots of practice yet. At the time I spur-of-the-moment decided to take these pics, I grabbed the old one because it was handier and I knew what settings to use.

I have taken some pics with the new one, though, and got the software loaded and the pics into the computer... and then I deleted most of them. :)

annie dee said...

Keep pluggin' with the new one. You'll get the hang of it in no time.

Anonymous said...

Oh My! And here in NC we are whining over the likely single digit temps with wind chill of -5. Not a snow flake around.
Ellen

Grandma G said...

I guess it's all in what you're used to, Ellen. So go ahead and whine... that IS cold for NC!

The Luedtke Family said...

We got a couple to a few inches yesterday. Another round of inches today. Then, we plummet to below zero, I thought -11 but the weather last night predicted maybe lower. Uncharacteristic for around here. Talks of school closing on Monday, we shall see. Monday would be our first day back from winter break. It is looking like MN around here. We were outside all afternoon yesterday tubing and sledding, so we had fun - in the warmth! Stay warm!

Grandma G said...

And now you've joined the "too-cold-for-school" club, Becky! What a crazy winter!