Who’d’ve thought? First Frost and First Snow within a week.
On Sunday, the 23rd, with the temperature at 36.5o at 7:30 a.m. I wasn’t imagining any frost here. As I started my early morning dash to Sheetz in Romney to pick up the Sunday papers, I turned on the wipers to clear the dew from the windshield, but the wipers skimmed the dew, because it was, in fact, frozen. There was no other frost at my place, but as I drove down Jersey Mountain Road, I saw low-lying fields white with the frost, and later Hazel, who lives just down the road from me, said that they had had frost. As their property lies lower than mine, they always get frost earlier in the fall, and later in the spring, than I do.
It wasn’t until Friday, yesterday, that there was real frost here on my place, but I had to walk down to the lower lawn to check for sure, as it still was not as whited as the fields along Jersey Mountain Road on Sunday. But the talk now was of snow. On Thursday night, when I met with some friends for supper, talk was of possible rain or snow on Saturday, with temps not above 41o, so we agreed to cancel our planned Adopt-a-Highway litter pickup. Yesterday (Friday) when I lunched with my sister, Lois, in Martinsburg, she said that in Hagerstown 5 to 8 inches of snow was forecast. I could hardly believe that, but when I stopped by for shopping at Lowe’s, Sheetz, and Target, the talk among customers and staff was all about expected snow. When I arrived home a little before 5, I noticed the Weather Alert red light was on, so I listened, and they were indeed predicting rain mixed with snow, changing to snow mixed with rain, or something like that, beginning in the evening and continuing through the day on Saturday, possibly accumulating 4 or 5 inches.
And so it began, from rain throughout the evening, snowflakes appeared in the mix along about 9 p.m., and by bedtime it was pretty much snow, heavy, wet stuff, just beginning to cover the ground. Now, at 1 p.m. on Saturday, we have probably a good three inches. Beginning about 7 a.m., power began flickering off at intervals, making it impossible to watch my Saturday morning show, Up With Chris, or even to adequately dvr it. Flickers began to increase in frequency, and now, as of about ten minutes ago, the lights went off, apparently quite seriously this time. So I am constrained to finish this little epistle before the battery goes out on my laptop.
Can’t help thinking about those intrepid souls at Occupy WallStreet, in NY, Boston, and elsewhere, this is not going to make their vigil easy. I know that a couple of days ago when snow fell in Denver on their occupy site, two of the protesters were taken to the hospital suffering from hypothermia. A day or so ago in Zuccoti park an infiltrator, a right-winger associated with the likes of James O’Keefe and Breitbart, was passing out free bongs and wrappers to protesters and asking to take their photos as they smoked. Someone got suspicious and asked was he going to turn those photos over to Fox? He pretended innocence and asked why couldn’t he just pass out free stuff? A distrustful protester standing behind him had been chanting “f…f…f…” at him, and then asked, “Why don’t you give out something useful, like thermal underwear? It’s going to get cold here.” I thought about him last night.
Monday
We probably had a good 4 to 5 inches of the white stuff, power was off about 8 hours, and again about an hour Sunday morning. Today I hear that in the Northeast where snow was up to 3 feet and with strong winds, there are about 4 million people without power, and it may be days before some of them get it back. Imagine, snow days on Hallowe’en.
I was not at all looking forward to this snow. While I am known to love the snow, I am more used to having time to look forward to it, after long, cold, frosty, gray, dull winter days, with ice beginning to form on the pond, snow has somehow seemed like a comfort to me, indeed, I have likened it to a downy comforter settling down warm, cozy, and silent around me. I suppose that in light of the weather service predicting December and January to be colder by 2 or 3 degrees than normal, and with more precipitation, meaning snow, I was looking forward to winter with some trepidation. So this early snow did not fill me with delight.
Weather is expected to become milder through the week, and I can cut some more turnip greens and kale, cut those last little cabbages that formed on cut cabbage stalks, and bring in the Brussels sprouts, which are beautiful this year, five plants of them. Consider covering winter garden. Gather more kindling and carry more firewood. Get out the flannel sheets and long johns, and where did I leave those foot thingies with the cleats for walking on ice?
At 7:15 there was a scene on tv of sunrise behind the capitol, but here it is not up yet.
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