Yeah, it snowed yesterday

And, yeah, it's gone already. Only got about an inch, never got much below freezing and today the high was near 50, so the snow disappeared quickly. We've had about five or six snows this winter, none of them more than an inch or two. Some of them hung around for quite some time because we've had some prolonged cold weather several times this winter, but by and large this winter has been only slightly less disappointing, winter-weather-wise, than last winter, which basically was spring. Oh well. I can live without cold weather -- high school in Hawaii was great -- but if I live somewhere that is supposed to get cold, damn it I want it to snow. So far we've had some pretty good cold, but not snow. Not much luck the last couple years. The storms keep missing us by just a little bit.

Having said that, we'll probably get a blizzard in two weeks. Careful what you wish for.

I guess this is all the winter we're going to get

Almost a week ago, last Thursday, we had a little snow. Again, just a dusting, probably less than an inch. It barely lasted past sunrise. Long-term forecast indicates this pathetic showing might be it for the winter:

Damn

Another dusting of snow

Thursday night, we got a couple inches of snow. Still just a tease. Looking right from the front door at about 2 am:

And left:

And straight ahead:

Messy, but not a big deal for the commute -- most federal employees take any excuse to avoid work, so the roads were empty. Works for me.

Not fillin' and tillin', just chillin'

I stopped by Farmer Tom's Friday on the way home from work, and we worked out how our farming weekend would proceed. Since the forecast for Sunday was rain turning to snow, and the the forecast for Saturday was just overcast and temperatures in the 50s, we figured we would do our farming on Saturday, fill a couple beds with some more dirt, till the beds and get some seeds in. Sounded like a plan.

Alas, Sunday arrived on Saturday. It was raining from morning on, and at about noon it started to look like snow was mixed with the rain. By 1 pm, maybe 1:30, it was all snow. And it snowed all day. Mind you, it wasn't very cold -- maybe mid 30s -- but it was snowing pretty good. Nothing on the roads, but dusting on the grass. At about 1 pm, snow is coming down at The Farm:

At home, it was beginning to stick on organic surfaces:

Like grass:

Yeah, grass:

It's fricking March:

M id-March:

Anyway, all of our plans to put crops in and till beds fell by the wayside. Can't till mud, right?

Winter's last gasp?

Thursday night into Friday morning, it actually snowed again. Apparently, we are back-end loading winter this year, as we had almost no cold weather until mid-January, and even then only in brief spurts. Now we keep having winter blasts followed by spring-like conditions. A man could get whiplash. As it is, Friday morning, this is what I walked out the door to:

And this:

Only a little more than an inch, but snow is snow. Didn't stick to the roads or sidewalks, but made me clean off my car. Gone by the time I got home, as it was a sunny day with temperatures in the low 40s -- not good times for a snowman.

Yeah, it snowed again, but nothing stops the work machine that is Raised By Wolves

So, there was snow predicted for Tuesday. Not much -- 3 to 5 inches -- but enough to make me check early to be sure I could get to work. So, when I got up at the butt-crack of dawn, this is what I saw looking west:

And, of course, looking east:

No problem. I went to work at the usual time -- 0:dark:30 -- and Mrs. Wolves picked up the slack on the picture-taking. She is, needless to say, much more artistic than I:

I think these are cardinals, but I am never at home and awake at the same time as Mrs. Wolves, so I could be wronge:

Winter wonderland, people:

Sleigh bells ring, are you listening?

In the lane, snow is glistening. OK, enough of that shit. Here, Jeb the Wonder Dog looks for a place to unleash evil:

All in all, we got a nice dusting of winter:

I would say we got 3-4 inches. Nothing like the recent blizzard, but enough to notice. And I hear that winter is not done. We'll see.

The final countdown

As of 3:30 pm Saturday, we had 35 inches of snow in New Market -- more than any other area of Frederick County, and more than any other DC suburb. Plus, we had about 6 hours of snowfall after that, so I don't know what the total was, but it was more than 35 inches, which is a record. Today, we were less concerned with records than getting out. Not an easy proposition:

Snow-nami might be gone, but the snow was not. Much digging Saturday night got my car sort of clear, but with much digging on Sunday Mrs. Wolves got it so you can see the car:

Of course, the satellite dish was buried -- that little black dot on my roof is the very  tip of the satellite receiver. Not getting any TV through that shit. Fortunately, we were able to get to DirecTV through the interwebs and watch the games:

We are going to have piles of snow until June:

With a little luck, they won't be behind our cars:

As of about 7 pm, the HOA plow guys had finally made it possible to pull my car out. I will be back at work tomorrow. Not sure how I feel about that.

Still waiting on a definitive word on how much snow we got, but I'm pretty sure it was close to 40 inches. We'll see what the final countdown is:

Well, that was interesting

All of the DC metro area is talking about the snowstorm of Biblical proportions that is supposed to hit the area starting Friday and running through Sunday. My neck of the woods is currently in the 15-25 inches band, although there is a 20% chance that we will get 25-35 inches. We'll see. But that's not what I'm talking about here.

Tonight, starting at about 5 pm -- perfect for rush hour -- we got what was supposed to be a "dusting" of snow that turned out to be about a half-inch. That's nothing, really, but it has been so cold the last couple days -- highs below freezing -- that every single snowflake stuck. DC drivers, notoriously unable to handle driving in snow, once again failed miserably. Traffic was tangled all over the region, even when I left work at 9 pm (and got to my car at the Metro station at close to 10 pm).

Road conditions just weren't that bad, but all it takes to fuck things up is a couple people who think road conditions are that bad and then turn on their emergency blinkers and drive 10 miles per hour in the left lane. What I wouldn't have given for machine guns mounted on my hood.

Anyway, I got home fine -- although considerably later than usual -- and am now all fired up for the actual snowstorm that starts Friday afternoon. I can hardly wait.

A minor correction

Sure, I called tomorrow the first day of Spring. Maybe not. Technically speaking, the vernal equinox -- when the sun shines directly on the equator -- occurs today at 6:45 pm. Night and day are nearly equal in length today, and from here on out, at least in the Northern Hemisphere, the days will get longer. The vernal equinox always happens on March 19, 20 or 21 and is considered the first day of spring. This year, it happens to fall on March 20 -- today -- but as a kid, we always considered March 21 to be the first day of spring. Not sure we gave a lot of thought to when the actual equinox was. Anyway, enough boring people with details. Whether the first day of spring is today or tomorrow, we're having a snowstorm now. There was more than 3 inches on the ground when I left home, and more coming. As I said, Winter is a stubborn bastard.

Seriously, is that a noble beast or what?

Jeb the Wonder Dog is a winter warrior. He never shows signs of being cold, he doesn't care about snow or freezing rain or any other form of winter weather. Dude is into it. So when we got 9 inches of snow last week, Jeb's main response was, can we play in it?

Yeah, he's digging it. I'll probably take him to The Farm Sunday for the opening of farming season. He digs that, too.

Sign of spring?

Immediately after last week's 9-inch snow dump, Mrs. Wolves was out photographing and spotted a whole bunch of robins. She has a couple pictures of a tree with maybe half a dozen robins in in, but they were too far away for decent viewing. Then she got this one, the first robin of spring:

Never mind that there was a ton of snow on the ground, this bird is making a statement. Spring is here. Unless, of course, it isn't -- I hear rumblings of a winter weather event next weekend. Guess we'll see. In the meantime, farming starts Sunday!

Yeah, another snow day

Despite the email telling us to just fucking show up, I took a snow day yesterday. I got up at 6 am and there was about an inch of snow on the ground, and it was really coming down. I figured I could get to work, but I might not be able to get home. I went back to bed. Sure 'nuff, when I got up again at 9, there was about 3 inches, and piling up fast. I stayed home and played board games with Cpl. Wolves and Marrying Into Wolves. Good fun. It kept snowing. At about 1 pm, it looked like this:

And this:

And this:

I shoveled the walk about then, and less than an hour later it looked like this:

When it finally quit at about 5 pm, I took out the old tape measure, and it looked a lot like we got 9 inches, maybe a little more:

Naturally, this meant that Cpl. Wolves had to get his ass out there and clear my car. Yeah, I helped, and we got both cars cleared and shoveled out so we could leave today -- me at 0 Dark 30, when the temperature was a balmy 1 degree, and him in the early afternoon to go to drill weekend with the mercury solidly in the high 20s. He is fairly likely to come home Sunday as Sgt. Wolves.

Early evening, a little more snow falling, but between the shoveling and liberal use of potassium chloride (good for the plants -- potassium is fertilizer) the walk stayed clear:

Wish I could say the same for the rest of the neighborhood. Walking Jeb the Wonder Dog last night was quite an experience. Deep snow, blocked sidewalks and cold as a motherfucker.

With a little luck, this is winter's last gasp. The guy I grow stuff with wanted to get started on The Farm this weekend -- need to build boxes for some beds and get all the beds in place and all soiled up -- but it looks like that won't happen, as we are under a whole bunch of snow,  and likely will be for a bit. We'll see how hard spring hits, but we should start getting posts from The Farm soon. Can't wait.

Ansel Adams, eat your heart out.

Mrs. Wolves takes pictures. They usually are pretty good. She likes artistic shots. Like this one of a snowy and icy field:

Most of those footprints are probably mine, Mrs. Wolves' and Jeb the Wonder Dog's. She also likes snow and clouds:

Nice sunshine effect. Anyway, depending upon who you listen to, we could get 10 inches of snow tonight and tomorrow, or we could get 2. The guy who has been more accurate says 10. Right now it is raining/sleeting, waiting to turn over to snow. We'll see. I'm sure either way there will be pictures.

I'm sorry, the calendar says March

So why did we get snow and ice Sunday? And snow and ice forecast for this afternoon? And more snow Thursday? Someone needs to have a word with someone. It's almost spring, and I expect some spring-like weather, damn it. And yeah, I'm blogging behind enemy lines.

Yet another exciting drive home

Saturday, we were projected to get 3-5 inches of snow, starting about noon. So I went to work, figuring I would leave at about 1 pm and get out before it got ugly. That really didn't work out too well. We got closer to 10 inches (out where I am, anyway) and it started at about 9 am. I left at noon when it became clear that the streets in DC were accumulating snow, and the traffic cameras indicated that I-270 was turning into a ski slope. Yeah, it wasn't early enough. It took me more than 3 hours to get home -- normally a 1 hour trip when I drive in on a weekend. It really sucked. This is what it looked like about an hour after I got home. Note: the car on the left is the one I drove, and it had only been there about an hour:

We wound up getting 8-10 inches. I think closer to 10:

It kept coming down until about 8 pm:

Jeb the Wonder Dog likes snow. As you can see from the depth at the end of the shoveled portion of the sidewalk, we got a bit:

At about 8 pm, it turned to freezing rain, which made the walk with Jeb really pleasant. It also kept me from going to work Sunday, because the roads were a skating rink.

Well, that was an exciting drive

We're supposed to get up to 8 inches of snow tonight. Unfortunately, it started several hours before I left work, which meant about two inches had fallen by the time I got to my car at the Metro station -- just enough to make the roads a mess, but not enough to get the plows out yet. The 30 miles home -- the last 10 over some very hilly, twisty country roads -- was a joy. Obviously, I made it. Just 15 minutes after I got home, my car looked like this:

We were already better than 2 inches in by the time I walked Jeb the Wonder Dog, and the front yard looked like this:

Low teens, but no wind, so the walk wasn't as bad as the last couple of nights. But it was still stupid cold. Snow I can live with, but bitter cold is, like, totally not my thing. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

I think I just froze my face off

For what might be the first time in my life that did not involve an armed robbery, I wished tonight that I owned a ski mask. We got a little snow tonight -- about an inch, pretty much all at once, which made the drive home interesting, as the "all at once" coincided with when I was driving home -- but that isn't the real story. The low tonight is supposed to be about 7 degrees. Right now, it is about 13 degrees (we're talking Fahrenheit here, people), but the wind chill is down to -7, because it is really windy. And I just got back from walking a dog who apparently thought it was too cold to drop the deuce.

For 30 minutes, we walked the neighborhood. He finally did the deed when I was probably minutes away from going full Robert Scott and dying in a snow drift (look it up, people). The main problem was that, while I had a great hat on that kept my head warm, and a nice scarf that kept my neck warm, and a bazillion layers that kept my upper body warm, and I don't give a fuck about my legs because I once went through two of the worst winters in 100 years in Blacksburg, Va., wearing shorts and so I know they can take it (different story, people, focus, can we?) my face was exposed. This turned out to be a serious issue.

No lie, I thought I was going to get frostbite on my cheeks. Having once gotten frostbite on my feet while riding in the back of a pickup truck driving from Needles, Calif., to Kingman, Ariz., I knew that frostbite is one of the most painful things around. Imagine my pleasure when I got home, frost-bite free. My face was cold. It was not a happy time.

But I'm OK now. That doesn't mean I won't buy a ski mask tomorrow.

Pathetic snow event

OK, so Monday it snowed basically all day and all night into Tuesday morning -- sometimes it was sleet, some rain, but a lot of snow time -- and the snow was so light that we got, in more than 24 hours of winter precipitation, what appears to be less than 3 inches of snow. Seriously, fuck me:

Seriously, this barely covered the grass. Yet, the area shut down for this. Sweet baby Jesus, I am surrounded by major league pussies.

Another snowstorm dud?

There is some talk of a 4-6 inch snowstorm tonight/tomorrow, but there also is talk that such totals are unlikey.  Guess we'll see.

Snowstorm dud

Earlier this week, there was a pretty good possibility that we would be in line for 4-8 inches of snow tonight and tomorrow. Systems shifted just a little, apparently, and we are right at the snow/rain line, so right now, we are getting nasty stuff falling from the sky, but it isn't snow. It was earlier, and it might be again tomorrow for a while, but right now it is just wet-cold-nasty stuff, sleet and the ever-popular wintry mix. Not nice to look at, but it still makes the roads dangerous as hell. Give me snow, every time. Of course, that's the forecast for Monday, so I guess it could still happen.