What to do with another snow day

Due to inclement weather and the other usual phrases, school is cancelled again today. It just occurred to me I cannot remark smugly that I used to walk uphill both ways. Actually, I did. 

However, there were way fewer cars on the roads then, and we walked strung across the roads that had no sidewalks. When we reached sidewalks, the homeowners and shop keepers had them cleared. The majority of kids these days seem to be on busses, and bus traffic on poorly cleared, early morning roads is a different matter.

I woke the second time to the front door slamming. I’d already told Laura there was no school, so I looked out the window. She tells me this is a far more efficient method of getting ice from the window than coming back in for car keys to get the snow brush.

I looked out the back window, at my neighbor’s car. This is what Laura started with.

Laura had a plan. She’d texted Deb and asked if she could help at Elements Gallery. She packed a lunch, I ate breakfast, and I dropped her off.

Back home, I perused Google news to see what new wheels fell off the clown car that is the presidency of our country. My current assessment is, the wheels don’t actually need to fall off. The Republican controlled houses of Congress are doing a fine job of shooting holes in them. And hopefully in their own feet as well.  The realization is dawning that replacing ACA with, and I quote, “The World’s Greatest Healthcare Plan, 2017,” is political suicide.

I used to send postcards to people in power, asking them to oppose or support things I opposed or supported. Or, I’d tell representatives doing a good job, “Thanks! Persist!” Now I’m thinking of sending post cards to, say, Paul Ryan: “Why stop at 14 million. Go for 24. No, 34. That’s a nice big number. Your seat is up in 2018; keep up the fine work.”

My real plan for today is to finish up the DC trip details, like the elusive Montpelier tickets, and get a firm grasp on transportation available in the city.  And, wonder if the ice will spare the cherry blossoms.

Picture credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images

Pancakes, snow and art

Pancake breakfast season is upon us again. I wonder how many organizations I could name that do not have a pancake fundraiser. And, so, it was the Hudson High School Parent Teacher Organization's event yesterday. Laura and I were in the crowd.

A sign at the door announced all pancakes were gluten free. In addition, all pancakes were donated by the local Perkins Pancake franchise, as were the accompanying sausages. 

Factory pancakes, re-heated in a steam unit, served over two questionable sausages. At the table, imitation butter and syrup. But, the coffee was real, and my $16 probably is well spent. We left the deafening cafeteria for the quieter student art exhibit in the gym.

There was a lot of good art on display, but these bowls held my attention. My mother would have loved these. All those church bulletins and colorful magazine pages she could have kept from the landfill.

Perhaps in my dotage I will look into the rolled paper art form and make all presents in-house.

This structure is at the end of one of the exits of the high school, and is where I pick Laura up after school, if she needs picked up. They call it The Gazebo. Ours is not to question, etc. I liked the lace edging the melting snow commenced making.

This morning the snow on my neighbor's roof caught my eye. Each section of his tin roof is sending down a a distinct unit of snow.

Almost the first day of winter

It's snowing in the township. 

 And on our drive and car.

The nerve!

We have the happiest sparrows for acres around.

In the morning the pear tree is full of sparrows,

waiting a turn.

The chickadee and the junco have not found their way back.

Miscellany

I've seen this little bit of natural dyeing on the sidewalk at the library every year, for many years. I've taken pictures from time to time, but never come up with one as nice. I'm guessing that where the brown is a streak, someone stepped on the wet oak leaf and moved it.

Woollie Bear caterpillars grow black  and orange "fur." The black is on both ends, the orange in the middle. The more orange, the milder the winter.

Not looking good.

I've read this winter is forecast to be bitterly cold and the reason is the continuing shift of the polar vortex. The vortex is a band of air that corrals the arctic cold and keeps it where Santa lives, close to the North Pole. Now the vortex is shifting toward Europe, but still has a long way to go across the Atlantic.

Do your Woollie Bears have orange vests over there?

Narcissus must know, and bloom anyway

Yesterday afternoon, on the way back from the library,

I stopped to enjoy the narcissus bed.

And from my bedroom window this morning,

I find snow appropriated the chairs.

The first 5:15 phone call this winter. A.M., that is

No school today.

One day I will get the top of the oak tree into the frame.

My road is not plowed; I'm home until it is.

Snow ball fight.

Today they will bake cookies for the road crew.

More reality

 Ten below this morning.

But, the overnight snowfall had to go.

"Me, too."

"Me, too."

Pictures up in the bedroom.

"I thought you had more."

"I put them back in the closet."

Fat brown headed cowbird on the suet. Another on the ground.

My sister quilting one of her scrappy quilts.

Laura, prepping more scraps to be cut into little bits.

Winter found us

I decided to prevail on the architects on the top floor for a picture of the hummer's nest.

Of course, it did not occur to me until it began snowing.

They're nice guys; they'll let me follow the nest until we cannot see it through the leaves.

I used the back left window in their conference room.

These were school rooms in the twenties.

This must be the bits and pieces room.

I could not resist a picture.

I read the elevator sign for the first time.

I hope the rescuers know where the key is hidden.

My office.

It was the sheriff's office, before mine.

 A very large eye bolt was sunk into the concrete block,

to fasten a prisoner by the other handcuff. 

My outstretched reach from the bolt to the door is just inches short,

so I imagine a taller person could reach the cover plate and handle  to try to break out of the locked room.

Having engaged a locksmith recently to change the keypad,

I know that prying off the cover plate would not set you free.

Back on my street, a gang of juvenile starlings waged war under the oak tree.

They cannot use any of these feeders except the suet, but were fighting in the air for the chance to land on a feeder and find thenselves locked out.

I went in for my camera.

And they were gone, except for the usual suspects.

The Hill, Elucidated

I was laughing so long at Emily’s hill yesterday, I did not explain it well.

There are a great many hills like that hill in northeastern Ohio. You drive down one side and up the other. Except when it’s snowing heavily and you’re in front of the plow truck, not behind. In that case vehicles can lose traction and wander the road, including slipping back down the hill. Cars descending can be in as much trouble; it all is a big mess with fender bender accidents and more. If it happens, expect to be out in the snow for a long time waiting for the traffic to clear or for a tow truck.

The easiest way to avoid dealing with this hill in a storm, until the road is cleared, is to stay home. In a storm, the only way to be in trouble going up that hill is to have come down the other side first. Roads were clear yesterday, no snow, and the drive up as easy as down. Oh, well. Emily is 17 and does not drive. She thinks a lot, though.

When I worked in an office, long ago, it was not unusual to be caught in bad winter weather during the day and obliged to get home. I worked in University Circle in Cleveland and lived in Lake County. It was a half hour drive on the freeway; much longer straight out Euclid Avenue, the alternative in bad weather.

One day we had inches and inches of snow. The radio said the freeway was at a standstill and drivers could no longer get on. Euclid Avenue was at a crawl. I did pick up a woman shivering at a bus stop, waiting for a bus that might never come. I drove her a mile down Euclid, to her street. It took a couple of hours. I decided to cut off to another route that went down into the Chagrin River Valley and back up. There was one bad hill, but I knew my VW was up to it.

When I looked down the hill folks seemed to be doing OK, so I committed. The one hitch in the plan was the cross road at the bottom and drivers attempting to turn from it to go up the hill. They did not have the momentum of the cars coming downhill. Sure enough, as I approached the uphill side, trouble began and cars were forming a jam at the bottom.

I took a good look, revved that little beetle, let out the clutch, jumped the curb of the center median and started up the hill. The median was grass in those days, covered in several inches of new snow, and clear of traffic. At the top of the hill I bumped down to the road and headed home. I remember picking up my girls from daycare at about eight; the staff was not happy and I did not care. It was a long day. That was 1969.

 Tuesday

Thursday

Male downy woodpecker

Nuthatch

That's it. Back to another fine spring day in Boston. I've worked as hard as the birds at my feeders to get up to and through the first meeting of the Board of Directors of Boston Township. That was last night. I am going to breakfast with Carol tomorrow and I will not go to work after.

The people vs. winter

I knew it was going to snow yesterday. My BFF was coming for our standing breakfast date at the local diner. But Monday I had a text, bad storm starting at 3 a.m. through noon. We rescheduled for Friday. We’ve talked about making Friday our standing day; Pam, the owner of the diner, makes cinnamon rolls that day. You must call ahead and reserve your rolls, but Carol will do that.

Pam keeps a saucepan of homemade caramel sauce if you want it. I don’t; too much sugar for me. However, soon she will be making hot cross buns, and those two lovely stripes will go down nicely. When I was very small, my grandmother and I would ride the trolley to Hough Bakery and come home with the box, tied with red and white string, of hot cross buns.

We had one minor snowstorm this season, and my road was not its usual pristine self when I went to work in the morning. I teased the new road super, when would he get to my road? He said he had salted twice, and when the snow eased on out he’d go back and plow them all. And he did. Not the sort of attention I was used to, but the road indeed was passable.

My drive begins half way up the last hill; it’s a sharp left onto the road. They never plow our apron onto the road because our apron is concrete, not asphalt as indicated in our zoning regulations. When we built that drive in 1988 we didn’t know zoning regulations. We just forged on. 

Municipal plows do not have pads under the blades to protect concrete, so our apron generally was not cleared. The last two winters the road super took pity on me and lowered the snow so I could get out. “Paycheck protection,” Tim called it. Perhaps I will mention it to the new guy, later on.

Tuesday morning was thickly white. I’m still armpit deep in all the details that will make the rest of my township year easy, so I needed get in. The drive was deep enough in snow to grab my tires, but I kept on, slow and easy through the stuff on the apron, slow and easy onto the road, slow and easy up the hill to the level. I am so glad I do not live at the bottom of my road. Every one down there knows when to go back in, and wait to be cleared.

The county road was no cleaner than mine, and Virginia Kendall, down into the valley, was most unkempt of all. I went straight on, to state route 303. Surely the state route into the valley would be pretty clean at nine a.m.; in spite of the fast falling snow.

And, it was not. In defense of snow plow teams, it was snowing heavily. On the other hand, clearing the roads is what we pay for. I made a slow and easy left turn, straightened up and began heading down. Not two hundred feet along, a police car was marking the descent of a car into the shallow ravine, burying itself completely in the bushes.

That’s one greenhorn driver, I mused, and kept on driving.