Freezing rain.

[wileypeter]

The sequence of snow, freezing rain, then snow has made this city pretty inhospitable, relative to the usual climate here. We don't have the fleet of snowplows that, say, Minneapolis might. Here snow melts. We don't get a foot of snow in two days. It doesn't stick around. It doesn't drift such that it buries cars.

The dog is decidedly unenthusiastic. Since he can't see much (contrasts only) and can't hear much, a wholly snowy world is one of near-total disorientation, coupled with the pain of his pads on the snow. Add to this the crust of ice that just breaks under his weight, snapping into sheets sharply off level, and his world is well short of ideal.

That said, it made for some pretty pictures.





My wife's car, coated.


My Skeleton Key sticker, rendered creepier by the ice.
















This one is my favorite.

Comments

[shigella.livejournal.com]

Woah! Ice storm fun.

We usually just get snow in piles. Ice storms scare me. There was a bad one in 1996 when I lived here; my car was frozen to the parking lot and an inch of ice coated the locks so I could drive nowhere. My dorm neighbor was standing on the hood of his car with a blowdryer attached to an extension cord, trying to blast a hole in the windshield ice.

I salute you. Brrr.

Ugh. And cool. Kind of both.

[wileypeter]

I remember a winter in Eagan when we had freezing rain, like a sheet maybe an inch thick. Whole county shut down. I recall seeing one kid skating around on the street. This was probably 1981 or 1982, but that's a guess.

Biggest upside? Time w/the wife. Paid time for her. Woohoo!

It's not as cold here as there, but our house . . . leaks air like a sieve. It's old, and has worked itself open here and there. Such is an old house. It's hardest on the dog. He's closer to nineteen than eighteen, largely blind and deaf, and much skinnier than in his youth. The cold, the snow in his pads, the utter lack of contrast. It's just not his week.

The cars are frozen in place, but we wouldn't be driving them anywhere anyway. A grocery store is four blocks away, so it would make more sense to walk there, buy groceries, a sled, and some rope, and drag 'em all home.

On a related note, shoveling the walk is a simpler matter when you have the right equipment. I suppose at least the gardening shovel I have is a square blade, but a shovel that is 1' by 1.5' is just not ideal. Cracks the ice nicely, but since the ice layer is 8" off the ground it hasn't been a major issue. Beats a blowdryer. The front walk is clear now, so our postal worker should be okay.