Re: A taste of spring
gardenchat@hort.net
  • Subject: Re: A taste of spring
  • From: A*@aol.com
  • Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2011 14:07:37 EST
Daryl,
   I grew up in the Florida panhandle, and spent some of the
most uncomfortable times of my life in that area. One of my first
jobs was at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, and that winter
the temperature dropped to 8 degrees.  The water-heater tank in
my apartment froze, and the pipes under the kitchen floor froze
and burst.  In the bathroom basin, the faucets were set out on
a couple of inches of ice.  And this apartment was heated with 
a couple of 18" gas heaters.  Talk about cold.
 
  I remember another time in my grandmother's house when 
I went into the kitchen in the morning and found the floor a sheet 
of ice like a skating rink. Knowing it was to be cold, we had left 
the faucets dripping - that was standard practice on cold nights - 
but the drain pipes under the house (like all old southern houses 
this one was built on stilts for passive air-conditioning) had frozen, 
the sink had filled and run over, and the floor was all ice.  In the 
more than 50 yearsI have lived in the Hudson Valley, I have never 
had anything like that happen.  We have had occasional problems 
with power outages, but we have a small generator that gives us heat 
and water.  Even on the coldest nights we are snug and warm.  
 
 I'm glad you enjoy the South, but I would never ever want to live 
there again. However, I am a bit bored with this winter.  It started
early and just goes on and on.  Today is sunny and a bit milder -
38 degrees - but it it predicted to go down to 6 degrees tonight, and
then more snow mixed with freezing rain on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Enough already!
Auralie
 
In a message dated 1/30/2011 1:47:54 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
dp2413@comcast.net writes:

Auralie,

It was that kind of weather that got me headed south. We had a couple of 
weeks of the miseries - very cold (a week below freezing) and light snow a 
couple of times in December, and the first white Christmas, and Ice Jam a 
couple of weeks ago. That used to be normal for the 80's and early 90's, 
then it was much warmer in the last couple of decades.

I remember before we moved and I'd talk to my Mom on the phone. (Dad was 
transferred to the Atlanta area in 1975). She'd announce that all of the 
neighbors were on their deck watching the New Year's Eve fireworks that 
another neighbor shot - and she was only wearing a sweater. At midnight! 
Five years of listening to that sort of thing, and frozen pipes at 
Christmas, and the then-record for snowfall had us house-hunting down 
south. 
30 years later, I have no regrets.

d


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Aplfgcnys@aol.com>
To: <gardenchat@hort.net>
Sent: Saturday, January 29, 2011 10:17 PM
Subject: Re: [CHAT] A taste of spring


> Wishful thinking around here.  Today was milder than the past bitter
> week - temperatures got up to the upper 30s and icicles are decorating
> all the eaves.  But we have mountains of snow - about ten inches fell
> on the eight from last week.
>
> We had firewood delivered last Sunday - the first day that it was
> possible for them to come.  Instead of having it stacked as we usually
> do, we just had them dump it beside the drive, and went out and  put
> black plastic sheets over it.  I filled my stash in the entry that day, 
> but
> by today it was about used up.  I went out and tried to dig through the
> accumulated foot on top of the pile, and was able to winkle out enough
> to get me through another few days.  Not fun.  I do enjoy a fire in the
> evenings, and have a Heatolater fireplace which makes efficient use of
> the fire - warms the whole area nicely.  But this gets to be such a hassle
> that I may have to give up my amenity.  Chet has a head-cold and uses
> that as an excuse not to do anything outside.  Oh yes, I know he has
> had pneumonia twice in the past couple of years, so he has to be
> careful.
>
> Global warming has really done us in this year.  This has been the
> coldest winter in many years and the most snow in the area on record.
> And it's only the end of January. Enjoy your hints of spring - none of
> them around here.
> Auralie

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