Snow Day

It’s a snow day today here in Warren.  That’s uncommon, sort of.  I mean, it snows, but usually not often and usually not much.  But when it does…well, it’s a whole ‘nother ballgame.

I’m no stranger to snow, having lived in Michigan for my first 35 years.  When we moved out west in ’85 we experienced a completely different type of four seasons.  Our first stop was Eugene, where it was wet, wet, wet, and then completely dry in the summer.  We wondered about winter, and came to understand a grim reality in the fall when I asked a local about the lane dividers in the highway.  We were used to the recessed reflectors, imbedded recessed into the road – these were bumps that stuck out a good inch above the surface.

“What happens when the plows come through during winter storms?” I asked.

“What plows?” was the response.

Sure enough, we got a paralyzing snow storm that winter.  All of about 3/4^th of an inch, enough to completely shut down everything.  The plan for snow removal is simple – wait until it gets warmer, which it usually does soon enough.

Our next stop was Boise, where it snows but not as often as you might think (it’s very dry there).  The mountains get a lot of snow, of course, so there’s equipment available for when it does snow, and we experienced a couple of good-sized dumps both times we lived here in the 80s and again later in the 90s.

Living in Louisiana for two years meant no snow, but people still drove like shit there.  Just sayin’.

Now back in Oregon, we lived in Seaside, on the coast, for 18 years.  When we moved there, we asked how often it snowed, and we were told, “about once every 10 years and it never sticks.”

Bullshit.  It snowed 13 of the 18 years we lived there, and twice the snow (a good 3-4 inches) stuck around for 3-4 days before yielding to the rains.  Naturally, everything shuts down tighter than a Republican budget.

When we moved more inland two years ago, we thought we had it all figured out.  About snow, that is.  The Portland metro area gets one or two snowfalls that “matter” every year, it seems, and sometimes they’re similar to the blizzards of my Michigan youth.  But until today we’ve been spared.  It snowed not at all our first winter here, a little last year, and up until today we were 0-for-everything.

You may ask – if we’re so far north (and we are), why hardly any snow?  We normally experience temps in the 40s, and upper 30s at night, so it’s hardly ever cold enough to snow.  Rain, sure, we’re famous for it.  But we need some sort of polar event to make it cold enough to get measurable snow.  And we’ve got that now – a hard easterly wind is blowing cold in the valley, and we won’t see the upside of 30° for a few days.

So far, we’ve got about three inches, with anywhere from 4-10 more expected over the next couple of days.  That’s enough to close government offices and the schools, which is a pity, because some of the elementary schools JUST OPENED YESTERDAY.  One FB friend with two kids is pissed as hell, and I can’t blame her.  She’s had her two daughters under foot for almost a year, and she got ONE DAY OF FREEDOM.

I’ve been happy to see the roads are almost empty, which is a good thing, because while we do have some transplants from snowier climates, no one seems to remember how to drive in this shit, and there’s always accidents galore.  The empty roads do allow for my neighbor taking advantage of the big hill on our street with her two dogs.  That looked like fun!

Wheeeeeee!

As for us, we’re inside staying warm, thinking about how just Wednesday I was contemplating mowing the lawn (really) and we were planning the garden for this summer.  I finished making the new garden beds earlier this week, and we moved them inside the garden area just yesterday (I have yet to dig up the sod underneath so they’re not in their permanent spots yet).  You can see the diff between the old ones (grey) and the new ones (cedarish-yellow).  Sigh.

Empty and waiting...

It could be worse – just 30 minutes south of here the temps are such that it’s not snow, but freezing rain, and more of that crap is expected – maybe a half-inch.  That will make the roads impossible and it’s already had an effect on the power grid – several outages have been reported and I’m certain more are on the way.

Speaking of power, that’s the only downside to the snowfall here.  Our solar panels are covered, and we’ll have to wait for the snow to melt before they will be functioning again (no, you don’t scrape ‘em off – damages the surface).  So that’s a pisser.

Otherwise, it’s pretty to look at, though it can go from “pretty” to “shitty” quickly.

I did live in Michigan, after all.