Drat this working for a living all to heck.

... since Christmas, and it feels like a millions years.

We had the big cold - several days where the nights got down to minus 31 C, and the days never got higher that -14 C.

Then we had All The Snow - about 17 days of lots of deep fluffy snow, because it started while the cold was still cold though warming.

And the last four days have been Rains in Africa Got Nuthin' On Us. We need the moisture, and I like rain more than I like snow, and it is doing a nice job of melting away packed snow from roadways and stuff. But it is definitely A Lot.

The girls both viewed outdoor temps of any kind below -5 C as not meant for tender toes. Towards the end of The Cooping Up, Suzi was getting a little crazy, and she would make mad little runs out the door hoping to fool the cold into missing her - and then she would turn around and zoom back in. Maggie would stand way back inside where toes could be warm, and sniff the air with disdain and saunter away while we waited for Suzi to admit defeat were dafrozen.

Both girls are going out for all the rain. The deck is covered, and they have secret places, but even so their fur has a dampness when they return. They had a bit of a thrill on the second day of rain when enough rain had fallen to unstick the snow on my roof and cause/allow it to slide slowly and rumblingly off the roof to the east. It was very noisy and ominous, and Maggie ran around the house doing her best Chicken Little.

Current forecasts are for more rain and more above zero C temperatures, but we will see. There is always at least one more hurrah of some kind around Valentines Day, and possibly more after that.

At about the time I posted about much snow, it stopped and we had some sunshine, and attempts to rise above zero.

We are now back to clouds and snow and snow and snow.

*sigh*

I am very grateful that Ford backed down on his unethical legislation. I don't trust him, but I am properly grateful.

I spent much of today signed into Counter Social and Mastodon, and I think there are some assumptions I don't know about. It's okay; I still don't understand a lot of things that have long since gone out of fashion, but that didn't stop me from stomping around shouting, "What fresh hell is this, then?"[1]

Counter Social's "Fire Hose" where you just get inundated with everything all at once, whether you know or follow the posters or not, is the best therapy for FOMO. One is going to miss out. Take a deep breath and accept.

I keep catching niblets of EM committing self-harm, and some of it is funny, and some of it is wicked. I am grateful I didn't have a lot invested in the bird.

It snowed all last night and all today, and it was/is below freezing, and the wind blew the snow all over, and there are 10 new centimeters, and it is -5C and heading down.

More about roaddeeoh and roedayoh: They are also stressed differently: ROADdeeoh, and roeDAYoh. I know that ROADdeeoh is the one I heard all my growing up, and that I first heard roeDAYoh on TV. I don't know whether it was real, or whether perhaps it was Second City mocking us all.


[1] - Dorothy Parker

So that means six weeks until it is on the valley floor, and probably 4 to 5 weeks for it to stick here. Dang.

I did find someone to clear my snow, thank heavens.

The first snow mostly melted away, and then washed away. Then, after the main flooding events, the temperature took a dive, and now we have the sort of snow that you can tell is planning to stay. Boo.

People have fantasies about rapid highway repair, but all the ground around the slides and washouts is/are still saturated with water - which will now freeze. This can't be a solid foundation.

Oh well. I have food for my girls, so the rest we will figure out as we go.

I used this link:
https://www.freemaptools.com/elevation-finder.htm

to find the following:

Mount Ida = 1511.0 meters
Salmon Arm valley floor near my Mom's house = 353.0 meters
Salmon Arm top of Tank Hill on Hwy 1 = 476.00 meters
Where I live, out of town, while technically in Salmon Arm = 529.00 meters

So, if the snow level drops by 193 meters every week, that means 5 weeks to snow.

Booooooooo.

I put out millet and black oil sunflower seeds (unhulled) on my driveway to create Cat TV. Which means, of course, that birds become accustomed to this food supply being here, so I throw it out even on top of the shellac.

I just watched a ring-necked dove skid around trying to stay upright while pecking at seeds.

(Yes, I feel that this might be a metaphor for the "average American" trying to retain their grip on their vision of their country as reasonable and law abiding. There has been a lot of horror shellacked on the regular world.)

This is the most snow we've had all winter this year.  It is melting now, so gloppage is assured.  Before it started to melt, I'd say it reached 6 centimeters in depth - all from teeny tiny weensy little flakes that were almost ice drops, but fell relentlessly for hours.

Bleah.  It is currently cool enough to mount up, but the predicted trend is to warm up and become rain.  Which is fine if it does it soon, so the roads melt, but if it does it late, and then the roads freeze in crunchy treacherous ruts, that is not so hot.  It was slow coming in to work.

Why no, we *never* *really* have snow, so this "plowing" and "shoveling" - what are these things that you speak of?

Just checked - still coming down out there.