Thursday, December 10, 2009
This Old Hovel
Well, we broke a record (at Syracuse Airport) recently for the most consecutive days without at least an inch of measurable snowfall--something like 285 days. It appears that we will be getting more normal weather for the indefinite future.
The current weather forecast for Oswego, NY and its environs, courtesy this site:
http://www.findlocalweather.com/radar/ny/oswego.html.
Today...Some snow showers early...Then lake effect snows drifting south into northern sections this afternoon. Blowing snow. Accumulation 3 to 6 inches in the most persistent snows across the northern part of the county. Very windy. Early morning highs in the lower 30s...Then temperatures falling into the mid 20s. Southwest winds 25 to 40 mph...Becoming west with gusts up to 60 mph. Chance of snow near 100 percent.
Tonight...Lake effect snow and blowing snow. Snow May be heavy at Times. Additional accumulation 9 to 17 inches in the most persistent snows. Very windy and colder with lows around 20. Southwest winds 25 to 40 mph...Becoming west. Gusts up to 55 mph. Chance of snow near 100 percent.
Friday...Lake effect snow. Areas of blowing snow. Snow May be heavy at Times. Additional accumulation 8 to 16 inches in the most persistent snows. Windy with highs in the mid 20s. West winds 20 to 30 mph. Gusts up to 45 mph. Chance of snow near 100 percent.
Friday Night...Lake effect snow. Snow May be heavy at Times. Brisk with lows in the lower 20s. West winds 15 to 25 mph. Chance of snow near 100 percent.
Saturday...Lake effect snow. Highs around 30. West winds 15 to 20 mph. Chance of snow 90 percent.
Saturday Night...Mostly cloudy with a chance of flurries. Lows 15 to 20.
Sunday...Partly sunny. Highs in the mid 30s.
Sunday Night...Mostly cloudy. Lows in the mid 20s.
Monday...Mostly cloudy. Highs in the upper 30s.
Monday Night...Mostly cloudy with a 30 percent chance of snow showers. Lows in the upper 20s.
Tuesday...Mostly cloudy with a chance of snow and rain showers. Highs in the upper 30s. Chance of precipitation 30 percent.
Lucky for me I live at the SW end of the county, where we might only get a dusting to a couple of feet, depending on which street you live on! The snowfall amounts measured at the weather observatories are often wildly at odds with what is experienced in areas that are quite close to those sites.
Hey, I got my pellet stove (actually the second one, the first one didn't work and I had to swap it out for another unit) and if my back of the envelope math is correct I should be able get the first floor up to a tolerable temp. I'm closing off the second floor to both conserve energy and to keep from having the roof get too warm and have melting snow forming ice dams up there.
I think I've got a little record of my own going. I'm approaching a year of having my house be treerat free.
I am sitting here listening to some Suzy Boggus and Leonard Cohen. I am also listening to the wind howl. I think the house is finally stiff enough to stop rocking in anything like normal wind. Last year when the wind was blowing this hard I was reminded of that nursery rhyme, "Rockabye Baby". Some fair sized beams, lots of framing connectors and let-in steel wall bracing seems to have helped immensely.
Life is good, as long as one doesn't weaken.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
15 comments:
I love Suzy Bogguss.
AND Leonard Cohen.
Southern Beale:
Yeah, Suzy could sing the phone book and I'd like it; Leonard could just read it.
For the record, Suzy Boggus is from Western Illinois. Not the university, the locale. And she rocks ... especially when she sings John Hiatt tunes.
(Demo, I'm starting to get worried about that word verification thing. Mine is, and I shit you not, "right." I've never sign it say "left." Am I being paranoid?
(Whoa -- typo-city, that last comment was. Should never type while watching TV. Probably should scrap the TV watching altogether, but that's not gonna happen anytime soon.)
DC, life is good with Cohen on, the warm stove, and a howling wind outside the window. Cohen goes well with howling winds.
Don't know Suzy B. -- what songs would you recommend to a newbie?
P.S. Tree rats?!
BTW, my WV is backedi. I think the google gods are playing with us. They too must be snowed in, with nothing better to do. :)
Elizabeth:
Suzy Bogguss (I had it misspelled before) has a number of albums out and I only have one, the eponomously named "Suzy Bogguss". I particularly like, "Hammer & Nail" and "Love Is Blind". She's listed as "country" but I don't get that as much as just nicely crafted, well sung songs.
Annie Lennox is another singer I really enjoy doing almost anything.
Of course, I also love to listen to Radio Head's "Creep" at volume 11.
codat!
Soon you'll be gaining tax credits for your solar array atop the outhouse, dude, as well as your methane collector. Wise!
But I'd imagine the treerats give off enough BTUs to make them welcome, non?
I'll send you my cd when I finish it, which may be soon. (Of course, it could also never be finished, but then again I'm no LC, and of course, no SB.)
I'm thinking of calling it "PG-73", as in; you can't listen without parental approval until age 73. Some of the songs are a bit 'complicated' for the wingnuts, but we should be kind:
we evolved from Republicans.
Oh, man;
my new word verification is "quada".
Is the FBI onto us? Is DvonE the mole?
Now it's 'blamie'.
Guess I'm the mole. Who knew?
Rev. Jerry Gloryhole:
How delightful to hear from you! I await your CD with great anticipation. I am thinking about setting up another blog, just for photos. Strive as we might we cannot crush our creative tendencies.
Counsellor David von Ebers is Consigliere to the General and could not be a mole. You, a man of the whole cloth, could never be a mole, too also. I know it's not Elizabeth as she is a woman of beauty, education and refinement. Same for Ms. Southern Beale. I fear that only leaves me; I'll have to work harder and take fewer drugs!
I must begin work on my Xmas Letter to the people. It takes a lot of thinking to make up as much crap as I do in filling a page or two.
Elizabeth:
Tree rats = skwerlz who move into the house. They are destructive and carry as many, or more, parasites and diseases as the more familiar rattus norvegicus. They had set up housekeeping in my hovel, as it was vacant for seven years before I bought it. Deceasing eight of them and sealing up my gable rakes with sheet metal seems to have made the house inviolate, at least until they learn to use power tools. Some folks think my attitude towards skwerlz is a bit warped. It's not like I hate ALL of them and want to kill them. I only hate the ones that live in NY state.
the Hon. Democommie Esq. said:
I am sitting here listening to some Suzy Boggus and Leonard Cohen. I am also listening to the wind howl.
also
I'll have to work harder and take fewer drugs!
I suggest two things:
First, buy more Leonard Cohen albums. Also, try putting on Dylan's "Planet Waves" the next time the wind is howling and the snow is outrageous.
Second, work fewer hours and take harder drugs.
Ah, lake effect snow off the Great Lakes - Gitchee Manitou's way of saying he loves us so much, he want to keep us forever young by burying us in snow and freezing us like Capt. America or Austin Powers.
No mole here, Rev. JG. Just an ornery middle aged left wing cuss, as you probably know by now.
By the by, Rev., I’m trundling through Infinite Jest the second time, having finally finished the first pass about a week ago. The second pass is eye-opening. And a lot quicker, too.
P.S. … Love Suzy Bogguss’ cover of “Drive South,” but I’m not sure it has the same double entendre quality when she sings it. As opposed to John Hiatt, I mean.
Dear demo:
You work on the skwerlz in NY; I'm working on those in CA. The damn things dig up my bulbs, eat the shoots off the new baby roses, and ruin the persimmons (they just eat a bite or two and drop them, so they turn to mush in my yard.)
The lady two doors down has told me how cute they are: "They'll eat peanuts right out of your hand!" Thanks Ma'am. Now I bait the trap with peanuts. But I think she's noticed my predations. Two of her "favorites" don't come around anymore. And they won't, until they manage to find their way the 7miles back here, crossing 3 freeways to do so. And I always leave them in a big field where a few red-tailed hawks hang out. (Winter, even in CA, is tough on those raptors.)
Mutzali:
I found a great website called "the squirrelpage" (IIRC). The guy who runs it is an exterminator who offers lots of good suggestions. One of the things he states categorically is that the little bastards can find their way back from over 25 miles away.
In NY there are two options when catching squirrels and other nuisance animals (skunks, coons, possums and pigeons plus some others). You can trap them and turn them loose--on your own property; you can trap them and kill them. They cannot be moved to another location. I've done eight of 'em, but haven't heard one in the house since late last winter. Good thing for them.
Post a Comment