Blizzard Nemo

A'yuh, here in New Hampshuh, we got a bit uh snow.
 

Our snowblower-equipped neighbors were out in force to save the neighborhood. Much thanks for their help!
 

All bundled up, B finds a fun snow bank. I was tempted to pitch her off the porch and into a snowbank. For fun, you see.
 

We found that we could not open our back door to let Jasper into the yard this morning, so we cut a path to it by way of the gate.
 

Jasper the wonderdog LOVES the snow. Here he is reenacting the battle of the Somme from WWI.
 

Being near the fence, the snow tended to drift into high piles on the raspberry path. Look closely and you can see the horizontal wires for training the canes: those are 18" apart, and there's one that you can't see that's 18" off the ground!
 

The back door has snow piled about halfway up the lower pane. Fun drifting, too.
 

 

Jasper likes bounding and rolling in the snow. Here, he wades.
 

Brynna did make it to the swingset eventually, slid once to clear the slide, swung once to clear the swings, then gave it up.
 

That's a 4-foot fence. The pile on the raspberries comes almost level with the top!
 
Actually, my favorite part of the storm was last night around 11 pm. I pulled on my backcountry skis (I rock the old-school 3-pin bindings, no heel strap) and went cruising around the neighborhood. Great weather for it, and I had the streets to myself for the most part. The wind was up (sustained approaching 20 mph, gusts up to 30), temperature in the mid-teens, and snowfall over 1" per hour of fine powder. Heading down towards a local park was fine: in places where a car or truck has passed in the last hour, the tire tracks made a nice packed surface. In the park the powder parted around my shins. Heading back home was tough: into the wind. Had I planned a bit better, I would have had a balaclava and ski mask. As it was, the headwind and snow made things quite uncomfortable. As I returned home, I noticed that my outbound tracks down the middle of our street had been completely obliterated by wind and fresh snow - all in less than an hour!

Warm January

For anyone in the Northeast, it has been a very disappointing winter. Since our freak snowstorm before Halloween, we've had much more precipitation as rain (several inches) than snow (less than a foot). This past weekend'spond hockey tournament, after being postponed several weeks ago, still had logistical problems of all kinds trying to keep the rinks from getting too chewed up. Ski areas have struggled even to keep their man-made base, as daytime highs have been routinely above freezing. We've also been effected by the lack of snow elsewhere: if it doesn't snow in NYC or Boston, no one down there thinks to come up here - just not in the mood. Anecdotally, some have seen their crocuses and daffodils poking up through the (not at all frozen) ground. In some places they are already sugaring. My relations in Rochester inform me that they've received barely two feet of snow all winter, for an area that routinely receives 100"+ each year!

To illustrate just how outta whack things have been, consider this graphic:

I worry that B isn't going to grow up to be a cold-hardened Yankee!

Snow in October

You may have heard the reports: we had snow last night. Not just a little, we had what would have been significant even in February, but is downright ridiculous in October. I haven't seen official numbers, but I would estimate about 12" of heavy, wet snow.

The weather has been cold for days. We have waited in vain for the numerous green tomatoes and peppers in the garden to ripen up. But considering that it has been about as cold outside as it is inside our fridge, we didn't get far with that. Saturday morning was the final (outdoor) Farmer's Market for the season: stock up on potatoes, beets, carrots, turnips, and onions.

Knowing weather was on the way, Hilary and I decided to make a mad dash to clean up the back yard and put the garden to bed. The leaves are only half down, but Hilary raked the yard. I pulled up all the remaining shreds of plant life in the garden, emptied half the compost bin into the beds, turned the soil, planted some garlic, and covered it over with the rakings. Take down the swings. Add some guy lines to keep a section of godawful fence from collapsing this winter. Spread some grass seed. Move the porch table and chairs into the garage. Clean up the random trash from the backyard.

American Gothic it is not.

In the final five minutes of that work, late in the afternoon, the flakes started to fly. They continued all through the night and into the morning. We awoke to this:


The remaining leaves on the trees were like nets capturing and retaining the snow. The snow weighed down the branches, the branches broke. We lost power intermittently in the night. Come morning, we had some downed branches in our backyard:

A little damage, but nothing I can't fix in the spring. That's nothing compared to what my neighbors woke up to.


Theoretically, the weather will warm up a bit this week and all this snow will melt away. Let's hope so: Halloween is too early for it to be winter.

Spring Stirrings

If the calendar says so; it must be true! Spring it here! Most of the snow is gone, including that covering our raised beds. Over the weekend I had a quick look in the plots where, last fall, I'd planted in some garlic. Viola!




Alas, the day after these pictures were taken the garlic was covered over again by another 3 inches of heavy wet snow. Nevertheless, the opening salvo has been made.

Vacation, part 3

In today's installment, we introduce a new Brynna pastime: snow tubing. We brought Brynna to Great Glenn, just north of Pinkham Notch, so that she could give it a try. This is normally a cross-country skiing place, but they do have one slope they smooth, pack, and groom into a sort of sledding hill. At the bottom is a pile of inflated tubes with slippery sheets covering the bottom. Human power does the rest:

Some do more than others.

After a single ride down with Dada, Brynna was quite ready to have a go all on her own. The gentle slope, Brynna's light weight, and the inch of fresh snow all slowed things down enough that she needed a significant running push to get going.

She sure had a blast, though.

I prefer the running leap.

Contrast this lovely outing to the following night when we took Brynna to the tubing area at Cranmore Mountain. This is more in line what most would expect: steep and long chutes packed to an icy quick. Brynna enjoyed slowly climbing up the slope on the magic carpet conveyor belt with Mama. But she was utterly terrified of the trip back down, so much so that she refused to do it again. We have since tried to accentuate the positive: she's game to do it again.

Vacation, pt 2

Tuesday afternoon, after a reasonably relaxing morning spent lounging about the cottage, Hilary and I took Jasper an about half our gear to Bear Notch, located about halfway between North Conway and Crawford Notch, for some cross-country skiing. It's cheaper than downhill, more athletic, and much less crowded. A key advantage was that Jasper was permitted there, too. Jasper, of course, was beside himself with excitement: miles of running through the snow. The only downside was that we were going to make him wear his booties, so that his feet didn't get galled up with snow.

Oh the indignity!

He also got to meet a long lost cousin: a fluffy black dog of similar breed to his own.


Hooray for the outdoors!

Vacation, pt 1

Hilary gets her vacation doled out in week-long blocks a few times per year. It might seem like a lot in aggregate, but is a small pittance compared to the 60-80-hour weeks and weekends she outs in between. I, aside from some long weekends here and there, haven't had a proper stretch of time off since I started my current job some 20 months ago. So, we were determined to take a real, honest-to-goodness vacation when Hilary had some time off this first week of March.

We looked at going someplace warm (the Virgin Islands or Puerto Rico, for instance), but got scared off by the price. We ended up staying close to home and having a winter wonderland vacation in the north country. We ended up staying a few nights at a cottage that's a part of the Farm by the River Inn, where Hilary and I spent a fine long weekend some months back. Knowing that it would be difficult, probably impossible, to do the kinds of things we wanted with a 2-1/2 year old in tow, we brought along some help in the form of my mother.


We are all actually pretty good about traveling light when it comes to ordinary trips, but we also were bringing four pair of skis (2x downhill, 2x XC), a pair of boots for each pair f skis, two pair of snowshoes, enough warm layers for an antarctic expedition, some food for the week, an impressive variety of wine, our dog and his provisions, entertainment options and a carseat for Brynna, etc. etc. On Monday we slowly, painfully, packed up roughly a metric ton of gear between our station wagon and my mother's car, and eventually rolled out of Concord under cloudy skies and freezing rain.

After reaching the cottage and settling in a bit, we headed into town to our favorite North Conway restaurant - the Flatbread Company, for some awesome wood-fired pizza. We split an excellent dessert four ways for my mother's birthday as well.





The Farm by the River isn't really a working farm any longer, although they have leased a piece of the land to a fella who wants to make a go of it. Instead, they keep about a dozen horses and take folks on carriage, sleigh, and horseback rides. In the background there is Cathedral Ledge, one of the best places in New England for rock climbing.

Are we relaxed yet? (images by B)

Snow

That's a four-foot fence back there - only the tips of which are visible. I sometimes wonder where the raspberry canes are - then I remember that there's another level of guy-wires about two feet down.



A'yuh, we've had lots of snow this year.

Snow Dog

We have a whole slew of blog posts to catch you up on, dear reader. And you might think that the Christmas holiday would be a perfect time to do that. I can make no promises that our lives will becomes less crazed enough in the coming weeks to get everything out to you, but we do have a few regarding Christmas. And, just because, we'll start at the present moment and work our way back.

We're currently in Connecticut with Hilary's folks. We were supposed to be back in New Hampshire by now. But, as with much of the East Coast, we got snowed in last night. An enforced, Act of God extension to the weekend isn't so terrible, particularly when it includes grandparents to watch after Brynna while Hilary and I get a much-needed lie-in.

And although Jasper might shy away from the door at first, he genuinely, truly, unabashedly loves the snow.

Cold Weather Play

Winter comes, the snow falls, the wind is up, and what do the moosesofthenorth do? We go out to play, of course. Taking advantage of the fresh powder, we got all bundled up so that we could go for a walk down to the park.

Brynna ready for her moon shot.


Our neighbors from down the street gowned up and came out, too.


Brynna, as it turns out, is very skeptical of the toboggan. You may noticed that, in a brief moment of forethought, we brought the baby backpack in case we needed to carry her. It is well we did bring it: about halfway down to the park Brynna began launching herself off the toboggan into a nearby snowbank.


The girls got tired of the slide pretty quick, and decided they wanted more wind in their faces by swinging. Negotiating those legs into the swings with clonkin' boots is no easy task - only surpassed in difficulty by getting those legs back out.

Unfortunately, the waning daylight, the increasing wind, and just plain time spent outside meant the girls started getting too cold for their good spirits to last. Brynna was by this point about an hour late for a nap, which didn't help. We ended up beating a hasty retreat back to the warmth, by which time Brynna was well on her way to a total meltdown.

Jasper, of course, is unfazed by the snow. He does, in fact, love it.

I hoped to take enough video footage to be able to put together a montage similar to this autumn one, because the characters and setting were largely the same; only the seasons change. But, the bevity of the outing, the difficulties of handling a camera in the cold with (or without) gloves, and fewer hands to watch the B made this impossible. Perhaps next month!

More Traveling blues

I made my mother cry on Friday.

No, no, this is a good thing. I surprised my mother for her 60th birthday by showing up. She hadn't thought that I was going to make it at all.

Still, that was Friday. It was supposed to be Thursday. It came down to weather, poor timing, and a bad call.

It snowed here on Thursday. This is not a big surprise - it's February in Minnesota, after all. I had arranged to fly from Rochester, MN (RST) to Rochester, NY (ROC) on Thursday afternoon/evening. I had a layover at MSP (minneapolis / st. paul airport, that is) at 7 pm Thursday.

It should have been a apparent that this wasn't going to go well when, the day before my flight, I was pre-emptively bumped to a slightly later flight out of Rochester (RST), 5 pm, which still left me with an hour to make my connection in MSP. When I left the house at 4 to head to the airport, the flight was on time.

By the time I got to the gate half an hour later, the 5 pm departure had been delayed to after 6 due to the weather (and ensuing snarl it caused in flight traffic across the upper midwest). It ate up just about all my slack time in MSP, but I figured that I could still make the connection, because surely things would be delayed in Minneapolis as well. I should have checked: that flight was still on time.

At this point, had I been smart, I would have left the airport and immediately started driving north. RST to MSP by road is nominally about 95 minutes. In this bad weather, it would have been a touch over two hours. It would have been dicey, but I could have made it. Had I been really smart, I would have realized that Rochester would have had problems and gone straight to MSP when I left the house. I would have had plenty of time.

But no, as it turns out: I wasn't that smart. I put my faith in the airlines. How idiotic that seems in hindsight! No one trusts the airlines for anything! Least of all punctuality! No, I dutifully sat at the gate in Rochester for the flight that wasn't going to happen. When the attendant got on the horn at 5:30 to say that it would be delayed past 8, I dutifully got in line to see about my connection. My flight out of MSP was indeed still on time (not sure how they managed that one, but it I checked it a few more times that evening and it did indeed leave on scheduled). Unfortunately, it was the last flight that could get me to Rochester that night. The next availability on Northwest (or NWA's new owner, Delta) wasn't until 10 the following morning.

Well, that really put a damper on my mood for the rest of the evening.

Weather is weather, and I've been stung by it before. Although frustrating, it is tough to stay angry at the weather. No, I was mostly pissed at Northwest for being so unhelpful and getting me to my parents' nearly a full day late...and at myself. Had I taken a moment to think things out, do the math, I would have quickly concluded that there was no way that flying out of Rochester was going to work. Although hindsight is 20/20, I do believe I could have made the right choice and driven directly to MSP and made my flight - if I'd thought it through. My only defense against self recrimination is that it's possible that, had I risked driving to MSP at that time, I could have ended up in a ditch, in which case I'd probably be kicking myself even worse.

All in all, I did manage to get to Rochester (NY) on byFriday afternoon. Boy, was my mom surprised!

In New York

It would appear that we lucked out in oh-so-many ways with our trip so far. First, even though the windshield wipers bit the dust early on, we managed to have dry roads and no precipitation for basically the whole 22-hour drive. It got a little dicey once we left I-90, with lake-effect snow and splatter from cars ahead of us, but that was just for the final 1/2 hour.

Also, if one looks at the weather, the fact that we encountered almost no precipitation is nothing short of miraculous. Rochester, NY received a foot of snow the night before our arrival (i.e., at the time we were leaving Minnesota), and has since received two bouts of several inches more. Meanwhile, in Rochester, MN, the night after our departure (as we were laboring pulling into NY), the temperature plunged well below zero, and stayed there all through Sunday and into Monday, with 20 mph sustained winds. They got snow, too.

So, for those keeping track, we managed to time our trip to be right in the lull between two storm fronts, and moved with them as they swept across the country. Of course we planned it that way.

Never fear, dear readers: the car is being looked at now, so we will have functional wipers by the time we move on in a few days.

Skiing on a longer leash

We got ourselves an extensible leash for Jasper. It turns out to be just the thing for taking him skiing. It allows him to keep a comfortable distance from the crazy sticks, but lets us pull him back if people are around.


We got a couple of fresh inches Saturday morning ahead of yet another arctic blast, and so we gathered up the skis and hitched Jasper up for another fine time out of doors.



Don't worry, the crumpet is fine! Jasper doesn't pull hard enough to topple H over. He did give her a little boost uphill a few times, though.

Winter Returns...With A Vengeance!

It's currently -11, with a windchill of -40. We had a giant blizzard today, causing all of the local schools to dismiss before noon, and the rural clinic where I was working to actually close for the afternoon! There's four to five inches of new blowing snow on the ground, doing a nice job of covering up the ice underneath.

But I only fell down once today, despite spending about an hour and a half walking (into school and back, twice, and Jasper's evening romp).

Jasper is utterly unfazed. We think he is a Husky in disguise.

PS - Congrats to ourselves! This is blog post #101.

Crazy Stick People

Jasper's impression of humans and their strange ways was probably made all the stranger this past Saturday. It was a fine day to be outdoors: we got above twenty and has recently gottena few inches of new powder. We introduced Jasper - the black labradoodle who bears a striking resemblance to a husky with his love of cold and snow - to the odd human activity of cross-country skiing. Imaging, if you will, his thought process:

"Ok, we've driven in the car to some new place to run around. Sweet!"

"OK, we're out of the car. Let's go! Wait, why aren't we going yet?"

"What in GOD'S NAME are those sticks doing in my vicinity?"

"You've got to be joking: you're going to stick those to your feet, so that you can't run or anything, and have a good chance of just falling over sideways? What the hell kind of fun is that?"

"Oh, I see, somehow the addition to equally ungainly sticks to your hands, so that you can't use them to break your fall, makes it more fun. Just keep that stuff away from me."

"I said keep that stuff away from me! Wait, you want to keep me on the leash, so that I'm, like, close to you and the crazy sticks? You fools! I thought I'd seen enough madness in the crack den!"

Ok, so maybe he didn't channel Hunter S. Thompson into his train of thought, but his sentiment probably wasn't far off.


You can imaging the difficulty of cross-country skiing when one wrist is attached to a very skeptical dog by a 6-foot leash. After a while, it seemed much easier for all concerned to just let him off the leash and romp around like he is accustomed. After we did that, he seemed more than happy to run circles around us, but keeping a close watch that he never came within 3 feet of any ski equipment. By extension, that meant us, too. Ah well, he kept to his pack well enough, and as the sun dipped below the hills, we enjoyed a winter activity that didn't involve donning four layers.