One planet and the moon

To think it has been a month since Venus, Jupiter and the crescent moon were all together in the night sky. Tuesday night one of the two planets and the crescent moon were back.

Now in the photo the crescent moon looks full but it isn't. My camera being light sensitive picks up more light than the naked eye.

The first photo is just another normal sunset.

Barn snow melt

Tuesday morning I took a couple photos of the snow that had partially melted on the barn roof on Monday. Interesting how the snow slides down and bends.

Snow and burning logs

Monday I didn't get my usual one day break from shoveling snow. It was snowing when I got up and it snowed all day. Big white fluffy flakes floating down. At dusk I cleared half the driveway of snow even though it was still snowing lightly. Tuesday I finished the shoveling as the sky was clear and the snow had stopped. The forecast is for quite a few inches of snow on Wednesday and Thursday.

I also nailed a couple boards to two old thin posts near my mailbox. Last year I had put the posts in the ground and had the boards up to protect my mailbox from the snow. It seemed to have worked. After my mailbox got dented from the snowplow snow this past weekend I remembered the boards.

I awoke to the sound of the snowplow Tuesday morning. It sounded like it was driving faster than the 35 mph speed limit which meant the snow would be thrown harder and farther. When I got up the road was clear of snow and my mailbox was ok.

With the road 'somewhat' clear of snow I went for a 5 mile bicycle ride. I had to walk my bicycle on part of my driveway near the house as it is very icy.

Here is a photo of my wood stove in action. Looks warm and cozy doesn't it?

Melting

Early this morning while still in bed I heard some sounds outside that I thought could be deer eating my shrubbery. I looked and saw nothing. It wasn't until I got up later that I discovered what the sounds were. The temperature was 37 F and the sounds were melting snow falling off the trees and shrubbery.

Ya. That's right. Above freezing. And with light rain. The sudden warm temperature had the frost coming out of the concrete walk and entryway. I had to be careful not to slip until it cleared up late afternoon.

The warm temperature is good and bad news. Good in that it is above freezing and melting the snow. Bad in that it was still snowing when I went to bed the night before and 3 to 6 inches of snow now lay on my driveway. It would be one thing if it warmed up long enough to melt all the snow from the driveway but the forecast only had Sunday with temperatures above freezing. I didn't want to get stuck with a rough frozen mess on my driveway for the rest of the winter.

So in the afternoon, for three hours, I shoveled the wet snowy slop off the driveway and around the yard.

Ya know, part of why I shovel the snow off all the time is to avoid having an icy mess once it warms up. Even though I avoided having a rough frozen mess, the bottom layer stuck to the ground and I will end up with an icy sheen on the driveway. It will be slippery.

The county snowplow came by early. The snow from the plow bent my mailbox slightly and I had to straighten it out to be able to close its door again. The local newspaper had a recent story about mailbox damage from snowplows and how the county doesn't take responsibility for the damage.

Oh yeah... the weather forecast has another 4 inches of snow forecast to fall Monday. We are continuing the every-other-day snowy pattern. All this snow shoveling is getting me into shape but I would like a break from it for a while.

Another fallen tree photo

Here is another fallen tree photo taken when I cross-country skied on Friday.

Slip sliding

And it continues to snow. I cleaned part of the driveway around noon. I was clearing snow near the road when I thought a car passing the driveway cut the corner a little closer to me that she needed to. Then a short distance down the road she slipped into the ditch on my side of the road. (Karma ) The road hadn't been snowplowed and in anticipation of two approaching pickups she apparently drove even closer to the side of the road. The pickups stopped, and being four wheel drives, one of them pulled her Honda Accord out of the ditch.

I have more snow to clear tomorrow or whenever it stops snowing. (Next year sometime?)

This morning the library called to tell me a couple DVDs I had put on hold had arrived. I had nothing better to do than drive uptown during heavy snow and on unplowed roads. None of the roads had been plowed and we have had a number of inches of snow. That made driving challenging and a little fun.

At the first stoplight the speed limit was 45 mph and I was driving 35. The light changed quickly and even though I pumped the car's brakes in an effort to stop I ended up sliding and stopping in the middle of the intersection due to the slippery road. Or I should say 'almost stopped' as once I realized I would end up in the middle of the intersection I drove through so as not to block the intersection. The cars on each side of the intersection had waited. I had no other problems with any other lights or intersections.

Ski area lights

I cleared the driveway of snow this morning and tonight it is snowing again. At least it is not snowing constantly and I had part of a day before it snowed again.

Here is a photo I took of the Big Mountain ski lights. Friday night and the ski resort has their lights on for night skiing.

The "square" lights are of the neighbors. The ski resort is the circular lights above the square lights. You can see how the ski resort's lights light up the clouds. Later the clouds lowered and obscured the lights. Then it began to snow.

Pleiades

I ran across two interesting photos of the Pleiades star cluster. I don't remember ever seeing them in the night sky. Maybe because they are seen in the northern hemisphere in the winter time when people nowadays are less likely to linger outside in the cold to gaze at the stars.

Christmas Eve day

It was a nice day; an out of the ordinary day. The night before the coyotes were howling along the ridge to the west. We had a dusting of snow overnight and in the morning sun the snow sparkled brightly like diamonds. Very pretty. Even though the wind was calm, as I drove uptown, snow occasionally would fall off tree branches in a fluff. Again quite pretty.

I went uptown to get another camera. The Canon 1100 I was wanting was on sale at Best Buy at $149 - the same price as Amazon.com. Which is great as I wanted to buy a camera locally in case it was defective and I had to take it back. I noticed another Canon camera, the A1000, was on sale at Target ($159) and it looked interesting. I decided to check it out before buying the one at Best Buy. I found I liked the Canon A1000 even better. Target was sold out but it didn't matter as Amazon had it for $139.

So just when I thought I would get finally get a new camera, I changed my mind on what I wanted.

I didn't see too much traffic on the roads but the stores were full of shoppers. I didn't pay attention whether they were just looking or whether they were buying. After a few years of a super heated economy locally, and an unemployment rate of around 2%, life is different in Flathead Valley. The aluminum plant is closing due to high energy and materials costs and low prices for aluminum. Other manufacturing industries in the Valley are laying some people off. The unemployment rate is now the highest in the state at 7.5% and house foreclosures are rising rapidly. Welcome to the new economy.

xkcd webcomic

I just learned of a funny new comic strip: xkcd

It has a science/programming/nerd bent to some of its humor so that may be why I really like it.

Here are a few I found humorous.

This bugs me too!

Man, I have such memories of flowcharts from my high school and college computer programming classes, and early in my IBM career. Do people still use flowcharts?

Now this girl may seem kooky, but I find her reason to be endearing. Kind of like Shirley MacLaine back in the 1960s.

I'm rich!!!

This is an example of the programming humor some of the comic strips have.

Ah, memories of my life back at IBM.

Icy spot

Here is a photo of the spot where I had slipped on the ice last week. I am back to normal. My chin is no longer lopsided.

Chicken coop fire

While shoveling snow this morning (yeh, it snowed several more inches again... what's new?) I saw emergency vehicles and lights at my neighbor to my immediately south. This is the couple renting the small concrete block house. Some people have mused that this couple are not the sharpest sticks in the woods.

I found out their chicken coop had caught fire. If I remember right I had mentioned that they had built a small coop in November for their chickens. Previously they housed the chickens in the only entryway to their house as they had left the entryway door open with a blanket hanging down and partially covering the entrance, and a heat lamp inside the entryway. I know... not the most sanitary situation.

The coop did not burn down as you can see it on the very left of the photo. But downwind it smelled smoke and... cooked chicken.

I don't know why they needed an ambulance to come in addition to the fire truck. *shrug*

Window frost

Earlier I mentioned how cold it was right now at anywhere from -16 to -20 F. Here is a photo I took at sundown from a bedroom window. Notice the frost on the window. Do you feel cold now?

Mountains are white

With this last snow the mountains are now white all the way to the ground.

Before:

Now:



Also, here is a photo of the trees across the road:

Finished shoveling

This afternoon I finished shoveling the snow off the driveway. The temperature was below zero F - a good ten degrees colder than yesterday. But it felt much warmer today. The sun made it warmer but also the wind was calm and that helped greatly. It didn't take long to clear the snow.

Since I felt warm I decided to go for a bicycle ride. I didn't go as far as I planned as I found it was colder riding my bicycle than shoveling snow. I only rode 4 miles and I was plenty cold by the time I returned. The wood stove heat felt great.

Last evening at dusk I saw seven deer cross my hayfield heading for the road to cross to the other side. That is the most I seen in a bunch in a long time. Where were they when Kelly was hunting?

This morning I seen deer tracks in the front yard as some of them crossed into the yard from the hayfield in order to cross the road using my driveway entrance. You can see the tracks in the photo.

What is also seen in the photo is the amount of snow I had left to shovel today. Now that I finished shoveling the snow, the forecast has more snow Sunday. Just like a few days ago... once I clear the snow, it snows again.

By the way, my thermometer currently reads -16 F. Since the sensor is relatively close to the house I noticed in the cold weather it reads about 4 degrees or more warmer than what it really is. Officially down the road at the airport it is -18 F. So I must be about -20 F. Brrrr!

Another ditch photo

I took another photo of where the pickup slid into the ditch yesterday. Today the sun shone and the contrast shows the tracks better than the previous photos. I also checked the fence posts and they are solid and not broken.

Bishop's caps

My friends Peter and Edwina sent me this neat photo. Another reason I like Montana - the snow usually falls straight down and not sideways like in North Dakota and Minnesota.

Hi,

We thought the berries on the Mountain Ash Tree looked cute with the little "Bishop's Caps". We don't get much wind up here in the hills/forest and it piles up on everything, as you can see.

Edwina

Minnesota voters

For a month, the U.S. Senate race in Minnesota between Republican incumbent Norm Coleman and Democratic challenger Al Franken has been hung up by several thousand voters who apparently weren't content to color inside the lines, offering instead X's, underlines, blotches and at least one smiley face on their ballots.

On Friday, the ovals struck again.

Recount officials accepted the ballot of a voter in Rochester, Minn., who filled in the oval — and a big chunk of the area nearby — for Franken.

It was enough to push the former "Saturday Night Live" writer into the lead for the first time — and send election watchers rolling their eyes over the unpredictable kookiness of it all.

"What's so hard in figuring out how to fill in the dot?" said David Schultz, an election law professor at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minn. "It's not that tough."

http://www.mercurynews.com/politics/ci_11275954

Ok... of my Rochester, MN friends - you Liberals you! - which one of you marked your ballot this way?

I don't know... from mine and others view: Minnesota 2008 = Florida 2000. The lawyers and judges are going to determine this election too. You know, if this keeps up, I'm not going to tell people that I used to live in Minnesota.

By the way, I've worked as an election judge here in Montana the past few elections. We have large signs all over and in each the polling booth showing voters how to mark their ballots correctly by filling in the ovals completely. We haven't had any problems. Does Minnesota not have instructions or are their voters just as hopeless as the Florida voters were in 2000? Or should I qualify "Minnesota voters" as instead "Minnesota Franken voters" as Franken has gotten the lead now that these oddly marked ballots are being counted?

Slipping into the ditch

I shoveled and shoveled snow today. I cleared a path to my pile of firewood. But I didn't get my entire driveway cleared. It was cold and the wind was blowing. I know... excuses.

It is 20 fence posts to the road. I shoveled the length of 14 of the 20 and have six left to do tomorrow. The last six posts have the least amount of snow of the twenty.

Here is a photo of the shed over my well and pump. I tossed extra snow around the building to insulate it more. A few years ago I redid the inside of the shed and insulated it well but with the wind and below zero temperatures, extra insulation is so much the better. Right now I am able to heat the interior with just a light bulb on.


While I was shoveling the driveway late in the afternoon I noticed my neighbor had stopped his red pickup on the road. Only then did I notice the other pickup in the ditch along my hayfield fence. I had been so busy shoveling I never noticed when the pickup slid into the ditch.

The pickup in the ditch was a four wheel drive and that was the only reason he was able to move about. The ditch is steep and narrow and he tried backing up to my driveway but couldn't quite get up that last bit. I watched closely as his pickup was right next to my fence as he drove. I was afraid he was going to break my fence.

Since he couldn't get up out of the ditch the last bit to my driveway, the neighbor asked his son - who now had come by on the road in his green pickup - to pull the pickup out of the ditch. The pickup in the ditch had a long chain and the owner attached it to the green pickup and the neighbor's son easily pulled the pickup out of the ditch and away from my fence. I was surprised at how easily the green pickup pulled the other pickup as the road surface was covered with packed snow and somewhat slippery.

I looked over my fence and it looked like nothing was broken. The pickup owner checked with me on the condition of the fence. He seemed like a nice guy in his late 20s.

How did he get into the ditch? By cutting the corner as the road bends in front of my driveway. With the snow he misjudged the edge of the road and slipped into the ditch.

It may be a little hard to tell, but I took the photos to try to show you the bend in the road. You can see the tracks in the snow where the pickup came out of the ditch. I couldn't tell where he slipped into the ditch but I imagine it wasn't much past the driveway before the road straightened out.

The last photo shows where the pickup's tires rubbed up against my fence posts. I did a visual check for damage and didn't go over and try to wiggle the posts to see if there were broken. I didn't think of it but I should have done so.

Here we go again

Another winter storm moved in last night and is spending more time here than the last winter storm. That means more snow. Lots more snow. I was surprised when I woke up to find snowdrifts all over. I've since heard we have had 10 to 13 inches so far and it is not done snowing.

Not expecting the wind and the snow to arrive like it did I had left my bunkhouse door open. First thing in the morning I bounded through the snow to sweep the snow out of the doorway and then close the door.

As the forecast is for the temperature to drop like a rock below zero F once the storm leaves I decided to shovel some snow today. Besides there is so much snow I can't shovel it all in one day. And it will be easier to shovel before it settles and the temperature gets colder which will also make it harder.

Before shoveling the snow I had to get the mail and some firewood. I buckled up some tall rubber overshoes but I found the snow went over the top of them as I bounded through the snowdrifts. (Note to myself: buy some snowshoes) I had wet shoes, socks and feet to dry out by the wood stove once I was done getting the firewood and mail.

I shoveled snow all afternoon. Over 3 and 1/2 hours. Thankfully the snow was very dry and therefore lighter than usual. Still, there was so much of the snow that it got tiring to move it by the time I quit for the day. And by the time I quit the wind had picked from a light breeze to a strong wind and that was blowing the snow around and also making me colder. Who knows... by the time I get up tomorrow the wind may have filled in the areas I had cleared today. Ah.. winter.

I cleared the area by the house and garage and some to the tool shed. I have the long driveway left to clear tomorrow.

I saw a county snowplow drive by again today. Again the driver drove slow so as not to knock down all the mailboxes along the road. With all the snow if he drove his normal speed the snow pushed would have flown up and trashed my mailbox.

That wind is really howling now. It is psychologically and a little physically making me feel cold. I keep feeding the wood stove in order to keep the temperature in the house near 70 F but every so often I linger by the wood stove to shake a chill from my body.

My replenished stack of firewood outside the house door.


Before and after I cleared some snow. See my tracks?