"It's Pitch White Outside!"

Our solar lights are wearing little Cossack hats

Indeed, in the immortal words of The Peanuts' Linus Van Pelt, "It's pitch white outside!" While last week's winter storm didn't bring much snow, it left a two-inch-thick sheet of ice all over everything, and almost none of it has melted. Currently, at just past noon, we've got about six inches of the white stuff on top of the ice, and it's still coming down hard. I reckon we're gonna be holed up here until the temperatures rise sometime next week.

 

Yesterday afternoon, before the snowfall began in earnest, Brugger and I went out in her car (mine has been garage-bound since the ice storm and probably will be for a good many more days) to run some necessary errands and have a couple of glasses of wine at nearby Hamlet Kitchen. It was nice to have a brief spell out and about before we're completely snowbound—and, to our surprise—our friend Yvonne popped in and had some wine with us. Back home, we again had to park Brugger's car at the bottom of the driveway, since it was still a solid sheet of ice, and unfortunately, on the way up to the house, I took a spill and banged up one knee pretty good. I'm fine, if a little ornery; mostly, I'm glad our neighbors weren't out to witness the brief comedy sketch (though they might have heard some colorful descriptors of the situation wafting skyward).

 

As with last week's storm, I very much hope we don't lose power, as there won't be any quick fixes under these conditions. The snow itself is just fine powder, and there are no cars out there—at least not nearby—likely to knock out any power poles. I'm X'ing all my appendages.

 

Till laters.

Solar light starbursts last night before the snow covered them over. Below, some photos
Brugger took of the white outdoors and a couple of pics after dark

Not Exactly a Snowpocalypse

Saturday night ice accumulating on the paved surfaces

The weather reports for the weekend were all pretty dire, and some places did get hit hard with snow, ice, and wind. What we got was mostly sleet and light snow, which, now that it's over with, has formed a dangerously hard and slippery sheet of ice. At this point, at least, most of the roads are clear enough to travel. Our driveway, however, is a different story. At least an inch of ice has rendered it completely unusable. Last night, I managed to get the trash can down to the street so the trash would get picked up this morning. This morning, though, I could not get the can back up the driveway. Every time I set foot on the ice, I'd slide down the incline back toward the street. Fortunately, I'd thought to bring my hiking stick with a sharp tip, so using it, I was finally able to get over the worst of the hump and back to the house. I'd actually feared for a bit there that I literally couldn't make it up the sheet of ice. 

 

Happily, Brugger made it safely home this afternoon from her (extra-long) weekend retreat in Asheville, NC. She didn't encounter any problems on the road until she arrived in town—and at our driveway. She managed to get the car just a few feet in, enough so that it's not hanging out on the street. I wouldn't go leaning on it, though, else it might go sliding.

 

During Ms. B.'s absence, the cats and I managed pretty well. I got in a lot of writing, a few movies, some strenuous exercise, and an argument on Facebook that prompted me to boot someone of my acquaintance from our Greensboro days. This was a person I'd known in the flesh for several years, and despite the fact she's a pretty hardcore conservative, we generally managed to get along. However, on more than one occasion, I would put considerable thought into a diplomatic and 100% factual response to some of her blathering, but then things would go south from there. So, yesterday, after just such a post of mine, she goes and puts up one of the most blatantly false articles in existence about the "lies of the left" regarding the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pritti. I confess I really lost my temper in a PM to her, and I'm not proud of that; however, after the horrific events of the past couple of weeks, and the worse-than-egregious lies from the "administration" (i.e., these people were domestic terrorists and intended to harm agents involved in an official operation), I am over and done with those blatant lies and those who either swallow or propagate them. At the end of the day, I am better off without her half-brained "reasoning" to rile me, and she's better off without having to suffer my temper.

C'est la vie.

 

Anyway, I am intensely thankful that the big storm wasn't the nightmare it originally portended. More than anything, though, I am glad that Ms. B. is back home. Hopefully, tomorrow, some of that ice will start melting.

Sunday morning white stuff — a wee soupçon

A sneaky mountain lion looking to steal my breakfast

Let It Snow... (Again)

Literally, a few hours after the last of the snow from the other day melted, bit more fell today—about the same amount we had the first time. This evening, I decided to go walkies around the neighborhood to look at the holiday decorations. There's a pretty good many around, and that makes me happy because I love seeing the neighborhood all done up. It's pretty cold out there, but once I got moving, I felt plenty comfortable.

 

I was most curious to see how our lit-up trees in the woods behind our house looked from other vantage points. There are several areas on the neighboring streets from which I can see them, and they really do look great—kind of like a bunch of fiery creepy crawlies from another dimension.

 

As they should.

 

Our next-door neighbors have a nicely decorated place, and they put some lights of their own around the edge of the woods next to us. So, we have what looks like a convocation of spritely spirits out there, and I heartily approve.

The lights in the woods seen from our driveway; they're to the right of the house in the photo above, just out of the camera's view.

Our next-door neighbors' place and some of their outdoor lights, seen from in the woods.

Since Brugger is in Michigan, I took the opportunity to wrap her Christmas presents today and put them under the tree. I always label them clearly, so that, come Christmas Day, there is no confusion about what belongs to whom.

Let It Snow...

Well, we got a wee bit of the white stuff overnight. Predictions ranged from one to five inches, and ours was about one and a half inches. It is right purty out, and at the moment, the sky looks like it's wanting to dump some more, though I don't believe there's any additional in the forecast. That may or may not mean diddly. I wouldn't mind seeing a bit more anyway.

Brugger is at her folks' place in Michigan, so it stands to reason we'd get snow here. In the past three years, every time we've gotten snow in Martinsville, she's been in Michigan. I think she believes we don't really get any snow, and the local folks are just joking with her. Of course, she's got plenty of snow up where she is, so she ain't missing much.

The roads aren't too bad out there, but since I don't have to go anywhere, I can just enjoy the view from home. As long as things don't get ugly enough for us to lose power or anything, I reckon I'm happy as I can be. Now, the cats are sure enjoying piling onto me while I'm trying to write, so forward progress on my current project has been kinda slow...

No need to laugh—though you certainly can if you like—but I've been getting in the mood to watch some old Christmas shows, and the night before last, I watched the Rankin/Bass Frosty the Snowman from 1969. I didn't like it any better now than I did back then, but hey, it fulfilled a craving. I'll probably watch The Grinch, and maybe Rudolph - The Red-Nosed Reindeer, and Ms. B. and I watch Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown! every year at Christmastime because we just gotta. But because I was in a Rankin/Bass mood the other night, I also watched Mad Monster Party, which I loved as a kid, though now it's a bit harder to sit through. Still, it too fulfilled a craving.

The Winter Storm Aftermath, Sort Of

For the past few days, the local forecast called for a potentially serious winter storm starting yesterday, and a winter storm we indeed got. Thankfully, for most of us in the area, it stopped short of being terribly serious. The severest issue in our area was vehicle accidents last night as the roads became slippery, and I've heard reports of a handful of power outages. We've kept ours, at least so far; around here, it's typical to weather the worst of a storm without problem, but when it's all over with, then the power goes out. The temperature dropped well below freezing early last night, but it's on the rise this morning, and right now, the snow and ice have become mostly slush.

I went out for my usual morning ramble and took a few pics around Lake Lanier, just down the street.

Big Honking Winter Weather

It's supposed to be a big honking weather event today and tomorrow, starting with snow and ending with ice, which is not a good combo for the power staying on and trees not smashing your house. The snow started about 1 p.m., at first just flurries, but shortly thereafter, it began falling in earnest, and I swear to Yog, these are the biggest snowflakes I've ever seen. Many of them are four to five inches wide, and it went from almost no accumulation to four inches of accumulation in about an hour. In the photo above, you can kinda see the big-ass flakes, but the photo certainly doesn't do them justice. These are definitely Godzilla-sized.

The forecast calls for freezing rain later, which is a really bad finish for several inches of snow. I really do hope the power stays on, and—even more than that—that no trees around the house decide to give up the ghost because some of these fuckers are big, as in house-whomping B-I-G. Now, I do love these woods around here, and we had reputable firm do a health check on the biggest of the trees a while back, which reassured me that we're probably okay, at least for the foreseeable future. Still, this past year, a falling tree totally demolished a house not too far up the road, and that's not the kind of thing I wanna see up close and personal.

Anyhoo, I had some writing to finish up this afternoon, so to complement the work, I made myself a lovely smoked Old Fashioned, using the smoker Ms. Brugger gave me last Christmas, with a skull ice cube, made with the mold she gave this Christmas. For the moment, at least, I have a warm house and a good drink. We'll just have to see what develops over the next 24 hours.

Before any of the weather started, I took down all the Christmas decorations, including the lights around the trees I had put up in the woods. Now I kinda wish I'd at least left the ones in the woods because they'd have looked fooking cool in the snow tonight.

If ice begins accumulating before bedtime tonight, I might just sleep downstairs, for whatever good that might do should the worst happen.

Feels Like Michigan

But no. It's still the South, just mighty cold, with a fair bit of snow. Actually, when Ms. B. and I were in Michigan last week, NC and VA got hit with a much bigger snowstorm than we got up north. Happily, home was spared any damage or power outages, unlike many others in the area. Since we got back, amid the fairly busy work and writing schedules, I've managed to fit in at least a bit of geocaching, which has been most welcome since it's about the only meaningful outdoor exercise I've been able to get.

Yesterday, I headed to Mayodan, for a five-stage multi-cache at Farris Memorial Park, which I had apparently visited while caching a few years back, but I have very little memory of the experience. Clearly, I am much older now. It was freaking freezing out there, with a bitter wind; not very different from my caching experiences in Michigan last week. Fortunately, at each stage of the multi I was able to take photos of the necessary clues and solve each puzzle in the relatively warm car. The final stage was a pretty good ways out in the woods, but at least amid the trees, the wind wasn't so fierce. I rather enjoyed the hike out and back.

Today, the No-Dead-Weight Irregulars — friend Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott), friend Fishdownthestair (a.k.a. Natalie), and I — headed down to China Grove, just this side of Charlotte, for a day of it, mostly at Lake Corriher. Once again, the temperature started out Michigan-like, but at least it warmed up a bit over the course of the day. We put in a good many miles on the trails, then headed into downtown China Grove for lunch (No Way José's Mexican Restaurant, where I et some killer street tacos), an Adventure Lab cache, and a few other assorted hides. All in all, a very fine couple of days of it — marred only by a particularly obnoxious health issue that keeps cropping in my old age. It doesn't thrill me.

Anyhoo, that's that for that, so until next time.

The No-Dead-Weight Irregulars: Old Rodan, Not-So-Old Natalie, Very Old Diefenbaker

View down the trail from the high ground at Lake Corriher

Heading across the inlet at Lake Corriher

Winter Storms, Blogger Fuckery, Historic Churches, and Smoked Cow

Immediately upon our return from Myrtle Beach last weekend, dire weather fell upon us. We had only a light coating of snow, but there was ice aplenty and winds like I've not heard since the last hurricane to blow through here some years ago. We lost power at 4:00 a.m. Monday morning, though it came back on about noon — some kind of speed record for Duke Energy. Our yard became a mess of branches and sticks, but next door, a whole tree uprooted and fell. It remained as you see it in the photo above for several days, until finally, this weekend, the neighbors took it upon themselves to get rid of it. Rather than call professionals — an admittedly expensive prospect — they employed a couple of friends, a pair of electric chainsaws (one of which got stuck in the tree for a day or so), an assortment of wooden boards, a footstool, and a pickup truck (which got stuck in the mud in their backyard for a day or so). 

"Maybe if we put this over here, and that over there...?"

At this point, the chainsaw is stuck in the tree, and the truck is stuck in the mud.

On Friday afternoon, I headed to Martinsville while the trio of men were out there working, so I didn't get to see how things eventually unfolded. But when I arrived back here yesterday, the tree was gone. The fence between yards (which I believe actually belongs to the neighbors behind the next-door folk) failed to escape damage (relatively minor), and there are deep ruts and mud splatters aplenty in their backyard (and part of ours). However, to the best of my knowledge — and by some minor miracle — none of the guys out there suffered death or dismemberment. I guess you'd call that a win for do-it-yourselfing.

More snow fell in Martinsville than here in Greensboro, but there appeared to be less ice and far less property damage. I have no idea whether it was actually storm-related or not, but the heat pump at Pleasant Hill had ceased the pumping of heat, so I found the house rather chilly. Yesterday morning, I managed to engage a service tech, who determined the system needed a new thermostat. He installed one, which got the heat pump working again, but a most complicated device, this thermostat. I hope I can figure it out without needing to go back to school to get an engineering degree. In any event, I managed to get the Christmas decorations taken down and finish up a significant writing project, which I'll be promoting the hell out of in the coming days.

St. Matthew's Episcopal Church
in Hillsborough

Since today's weather, at least for the morning, appeared conducive to geocaching, three old farts — Scott (a.k.a. Diefenbaker), Old Rob (a.k.a. Old Rob), et moi — decided to head eastward to several different locations, culminating in Hillsborough, where a new Adventure Lab cache awaited us. First, we headed to the Haw River Trail in Graham to see if we could snag first-to-find honors on a newly published hide (we did); then we zoomed over to a nearby park & grab hide, of which we made very short work; and finally, we moved on to Hillsborough. The Adventure Lab cache ("Historical Churches of Hillsborough") took us around the town's picturesque historical district, to... guess what... several historical churches. Hillsborough is a lovely town to walk around, and we enjoyed the opportunity to see the sights (again).

We topped off our Hillsborough outing with a visit to Hillsborough BBQ Company, which is a longstanding tradition when we're over in that neck of the woods. I'm a smoked beef brisket junkie, and Hillsborough BBQ Company has historically had some of the best brisket I've ever tasted. Some time ago — over a year, I'm guessing — we had visited to find the brisket not quite up to snuff. Not bad, just not top-notch. Someone we met on another caching trip told us that the restaurant had changed their smoking time or process or something, but the brisket was definitely inferior. Regardless, I wanted to make sure they had another chance, and this time around, it was better. Much better. Maybe not quite what it used to be (and certainly not as eyes-rolling-back-in-the-head-incredible as The Smoke Pit in Salisbury, which is now our favorite brisket venue), but we were altogether satisfied. Plus I found a really good, jalapeno IPA (Fire Escape, Asheville Brewing Company). So Hillsborough BBQ is most definitely back in my good graces (not that it ever fell very far).

But speaking of falling far....

The most frustrating — no, infuriating — issue of the weekend was discovering that Blogger (and by default, Google) fucked up my blog in numerous instances by their constant altering of code. At one time, formatting this blog, including placing photos (for which one might have a reasonable expectation of being permanent, since they're from Google's own blog photo hosting site) was simple. You could pop a photo in, place it as you desired, look at the html code, and see the photo ID in the code. No longer. Now you get typical Google Photos gobbledygook for the ID, leaving you with no way to trace it back to its origin. But the worst issue here was that a shitload of my blog photos, mostly from 2017, now displayed only broken link images. So I ended up spending a massive amount of time replacing and relinking the pics — with no guarantee the code will actually hold. Jesus God...  this constant ABSOLUTELY GODDAMN NEEDLESS fucking around with the blog code by bunch of technological halfwits is so infuriating, if it were up to me, I'd shitcan the lot of them (the decision makers, anyway) and make sure not a one of them could work in a technological environment ever again. Maybe cleaning shit out of pigpens would be more suitable.

Anyway. Go on, git. Bye.

Three Old Farts: Old Rodan, Old Diefenbaker, Old Rob

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night!

In front of my house about 9:00 p.m. last night. The wall of snow and ice to the right is over two feet high.

To no one's surprise, after 15+ inches of snow, with sleet on top of it, the power went pow! about 10:30 p.m. last night. I had anticipated this very thing, so I had lanterns, flashlights, candles, extra food & drink, blankets, cats, etc. to get through an indoor cold spell. Sure enough, the house turned frigid overnight, but at least the bed stayed warm (bundles of cats help a lot). Yesterday morning, I had made a huge pot of coffee in case the power went out earlier in the day, but then I neglected to make more later. And irony of ironies, I had just thought to do so when electricity vacated the premises last night.

Happily, not long after I got up this morning, electricity returned to Casa de Rodan, and so far has hung around. Hopefully for the long haul. First order of business: brew bucket loads of coffee. The office is closed for the rest of the day, also happily, since getting out on the road is a virtual impossibility, and even if it were possible, highly unsafe. So, barring another power outage, it'll be a good day to make a prodigious amount of progress in Michigan: The Dragon of Lake Superior, my next entry in Elizabeth Massie's Ameri-Scares series.

You people in the affected area stay safe and warm. Things are going to re-freeze tonight.

The Rodan mobile, parked for the duration.

T'ain't Fit for Man Nor Beast....

I may end up snowbound for some time. The big winter storm that came in last night dropped a good 10 inches overnight, and it's still piling up. Right now, it's mostly sleet, but it keeps changing out there. Eventually, this is supposed to turn to freezing rain, which is when the power is most likely to go out. So far, so good here, although there are reports of outages here and there.

There's no way in hell my little car's going to be getting out of my driveway until there's been plowing and considerable melting, which shan't likely be happening in the next 24 hours. I trust the office powers-that-be will have the decency and good sense to just close the office tomorrow. Nohing our company produces is worth risking life, limb, and property for a day at work. I believe it was three years ago that my car got banged up real good by another vehicle that went out of control—and I narrowly avoided getting banged up myself—due to having to drive in conditions where no person with a lick have sense should have been out there. I love my day job, but only up to a point....

It's getting darker and deeper out there even now. The big old flakes are back. I'm stocked up with supplies, but I so hope to keep power through all these. Else it's gonna be a cold, cold time.

About 11:00 a.m. this morning

About ten inches came down overnight, and it's not supposed to stop till tomorrow.

Shiver me beeches!

Snow Day

First snowstorm of the season... and it's a-coming down. The office is open, but driving 20 miles one-way, twice, in this mess—especially after having my old Buick bashed up on just such a day a few years back—just isn't prudent. It's just snow, not ice, so theoretically, the electricity stands a better-than-average chance of staying on, but this is Greensboro...so hoping against hope for the best.

For now, got Kats and Krankies. That's all good.