Snow Day

I am sure people who reside east of the Cascades will shake their heads in disbelief at my reveling in a snow day. The fact that we would refer to a day of three inches of snow as even a snow day will crack up many, but yes folks today was a snow day in western Oregon.

Classes were canceled, buses ran late, and kids throwing snowballs in the street at 7am actually woke me up this morning. Last night was Viking Hour, but they were on their own, and voice less, because I spent the entire time up on the hill trying to get our back up generator online. After having gotten my key stuck in the door (a feat that took me almost an hour to rectify, I got us back up and running, just in time to send the Viking Hour students home.

The mercury dropped to the low 30s, the wind whistled through the trees, and I bundled up next to my wood stove with a steaming hot cup of tea before going to bed.


It snowed continuously this morning and through out the day. Then by four (for the most part) the snow flurries and showers were over.
But not before I had to go out and crack my hose in half to spray off the satellite dish so we could continue airing The Music of Your life, and ABC top of the hour news.

A process that ...
1) I was not dressed for
2) proceeded to spray myself in the face
3) drench the side of my head
4) and the worst part - freeze my fingers off in the ice cold water - but I got the music back online.



I returned back inside as the snow began to come down harder, I warmed up my fingers with some warm water - ouch. Then when outside with my camera and shot this of Bubba and his snow dog, Jonah (who is usually the Radio Dog - but hey, it was a snow day.)


Sith,
Cele

Snow Ho

Decidedly frosty air greeted those mourning the loss of my brother in law Saturday as we gathered to say a final farewell. The drive from Florence was on wet pavement, no snow was in the area. As we hit West 11th grainy rain began splatting on the windshield, but nothing I could really call snow.

In a move of mercy the mortuary held the service inside, instead of a graveside as originally intended. Final viewings were held before and after Pastor Gary gave a nice hour long service. I don’t believe in viewings and have to say I was surprised when Ducky chose to stay to see his brother’s shell one last time before they closed the lid on the coffin. It was a decidedly un-Ducky moment. Members from Gwynn’s crew had driven from Portland for the service and rather than gather for food at my SIL’s, the Asian part of the contingency stayed to watch Gwynn’s burial (watching the burial is part of their culture.) Some people found this rather odd, I’m sure the Asian contingency found family members taking one last look, tucking notes, cards, and whatnots into Gwynn’s casket strange, too. I sure as shit do, but then that is just my belief.

The air outside was cold and biting to say the least and drive home began wet. But as we drove from Veneta to Noti (pronounced No-Tie) the grainy splats turned into small snow flakes, as we rose up over Badger Mountain (elevation 796 feet – I know mountain is a very liberal application lacking the necessary four feet to be called mountain) by the time we hit Walton three miles later the little snow flakes had turned in to beautiful fluffy flakes, and we were stuck for an hour as tow truck after tow truck had to unstick idiots who don’t know you have to drive faster than 10mph or you slide down the inclines of banked turns and become stuck in the ditch idiots. Snow birds go back to Arizona….please. For an hour we watched the flakes grow from large fluffy flakes to dish size flakes to floating sheets of flakes. It was quiet, religious beauty. Total serenity for me broken by Ducky’s phone calls to his sisters (who chose to follow us after the first phone call of snow in Veneta) for discussion on the value and nature of snow, flakes, and stuck in the ditch idiots. It really was a lovely afternoon and would have been made perfect by good sex, but we were in bucket seats with a mile long line of cars before and after us in line. No snow in Florence. OH HO, Hum. Sad is me.

Until this morning that is when I woke up to this.

Strangely enough NOAA lifted their snow advisory this morning for everything north of the Lane County Line. Maybe I should send them this picture.

True the Lane County line is 15 miles south of me, but well, it’s still south of me.


Ducky went out early to go see the snow on the beach, but all he came back with was a wet snowball and lots of threats.

Happy Snow Sunday. Okay, Happy Sunday Morning Snow, because the rain will start momentarily and it will be soggy again. Thank Heavens I like sog.

Sith
Cele