respublica

Frost and snow

Yesterday early in the morning I headed over to Creekside Gardens in Collinsville to get a roll of frost blanket to put over our vegetable raised beds. The forecast was for below freezing temperatures with rain turning to snow. I'm glad I did this even though the job of covering and staking the blanket was darn hard work.

This morning the frost blanket was topped with ice, not thick ice, but ice nevertheless. So now I'm wondering when I should try and gently remove it. I've read that it should come off fairly soon because it will act as a thermal top which could overheat the plants even when the temperatures are still quite low. The weight of the skein of ice worries me so....

Last year on the date was beautiful, this year, although the sun is shining may not be as nice for all our plantings.  Here is a contrast in backyards of the sem in 2020 and today in Collinsville 2021.

For the love of salt brine

With the big snowfall and single digit temperatures we've suffered through this week, one thing has helped us get around if we absolutely had to. That is the salt brine street departments and highway workers put on the roads. This chemical certainly helps to melt this stuff and coupled with plowing, the streets are in good shape.

The salt makes a mess though. And this means anyone who works at or owns a car wash will be very busy in the coming days as all the snow and ice disappears. I know we will be in this line at some point.

Winter

We are really getting a bout of frigid winter temperatures and to top it off, we're in for a lot of snow on top of it. I mean to say, it is seriously cold and the snow just keeps on coming along with wind.

So, there is nothing much to do about it right now, the forecast is for this snow to keep up a good part of the day. However, I have a plan!

Since it is so cold, the snow will be fluffy-ish and not soggy and heavy to move. I decided to try and clear it off (tomorrow) with the leaf blower. I got it out of the garage yesterday and put it in the basement to get warm. I hope this makes moving the snow easier and faster than using a shovel.

It should at least help get the snow off the cars, we aren't lucky enough to have a nice big garage. We have a one car garage, but Dale has been using this as a workshop.

Life narrows down when weather hits.

I slid down to fill the bird feeders this morning and they were waiting. It's fascinating to watch how fast birds know when food is ready and how fast they eat. Also, the bigger birds are the greediest and really cheat the smaller ones out of the best seed. Here are some this morning in our back yard.

These guys in the tree are waiting their turn, at least that is my guess.

I can't say enough about the hot pepper bird seed, we have no squirrels at all.

Ok, I have to say this once again

We woke up to very cold temperatures and snow. The snow was maybe 2 inches or less, but miserable to clear off in the cold. However one thing never changes in this area and that is traffic reports of one accident after another during the morning commute.

But, since Dale had to drive into Clayton to teach a class today, I was paying more attention to the traffic reports. Almost every report from local news stations mentioned how much better the roads on the Illinois side were than on the Missouri side. Every year it's like this. For some reason MODOT cannot get this winter weather clearing right. Each year I get on here on beg the MODOT people to come over to IDOT headquarters in Collinsville and take a lesson on how to do winter weather clearing.

But they don't it seems and drivers over there pay the price of accidents and sitting in long jams. This is not to say the Metro East has no snow/ice accidents but they are far fewer. It makes no sense.

More hints

Honestly with being home all the time I believe I'm reading way too much. Everyday I come across some article or other with household, auto, or personal advice. Today was auto and how to best get frozen car doors unstuck. I've had this happen many times and last week once again when we woke up to snow piled up all over my truck. Getting the snow off was one thing, but getting the doors to open was another thing all together. I didn't want rip away the seal.

We do have a spray bottle of car de-icer, but I didn't want to use that first. Mildly warm water poured over the border of the car windows works great, but what I did first was take some advice from a car guy who wrote about this. He said get as much snow and ice off as possible and then use a small ice scraper and run one end of it across the seams. Then lean into the door and give it a shove with your side. That worked!

Anyhow, back to what I read today on hints to get us through a snow storm. This one piece of advice on how to keep ice from forming on your windshield is just plain crazy. The suggestion is to cut a potato or onion in half and rub it all over the windows. Supposedly ice won't form on it. But! Potatoes are full of starch and how in the world would you be able to keep that mess from sticking on the window? Not a fun clean up job.

Also this. If you are out of salt melt for steps or sidewalk, this person said to make a mixture of alcohol, dish soap and water and pour it on. No way we're doing this.

 

We over achieved!

According to a senior meteorologist, the snowfall in our area in the Metro-East/St. Louis over achieved. Forecasts before yesterday's snow began falling, was calling for a dusting or as their newly coined weather term predicted, "Mood Snow."  

Mood snow. now that's a first. The two-four inches was a surprise to the predictors. The Mood Snow they expected is described as snow or flurries that sticks to roofs, grassy surfaces and parked cars but not the roads. I guess this mood thing is the kind of snow that looks pretty but doesn't force us out to clean walks and steps.

So the snow over achieved its predictions which isn't a surprise around here. And, I see by traffic reports this morning that once again MODOT has not done the best job in getting the highways cleared while IDOT has. Some things never change.

Our birds were really after the seed we put out.

Snow day? Maybe

The weather reports this morning are kind of 50-50 about this area having its first snowfall of the season. Maybe yes, or no. But it sure looks and feels like snow and as much as I like the pretty snow, Dale has to drive to his mother's today in east central Illinois and snow would not be fun.

But I did go to the garage and put our snow shovel on the front porch just in case and in other years when I've done this it kept the snow away. So we'll see.

Fog

When I got up this morning and looked out the front window I had no idea what was going on outside. Was it snow? Smoke? No. It was a heavy white fog that hung over the American Legion parking lot. And a cold fog at that. I decided not to let this go to waste and got dressed and went out to try and get a picture of this.

Dale looked at this and said, "The fog of war."

2020's last thumb in our eye

Woke up to a new year and...ice all over everything-roads, stairs, roofs, trees. It's 2020's way of saying good-by. Should have known to stock up on ice melt before this happened.

Great sunsets last night

So many were posting variations of this, it was so unexpected.

From our deck