Artic Blast

January in Michigan
Image copyright - Tammy Clayton 2004

Can you feel that chill? Whew - just looking at that snow made me feel better. Lordy, but its hot! Yesterday you could have baked zucchini bread in my truck. Furnace heat whooshed out and 'bout knocked me over when I opened the door. I kid you not. Scorched the back of my legs when I got in there too. If I had been thinking, I would have let the air run for a few minutes before climbing aboard.

The digital thermometer said it was 111 degrees F. Mind you it always drops a bit when I have been driving around for a bit. Oh it dropped down alright to 103! Thats about par for the sensor cooling factor of movement; it changes by five to eight degrees. Of course, in January I will look at this photo in my files and think about how lucky I am not to be up there in that mess.

This particular snowfall in the photo was wonderful. There was no wind and billions of huge flakes were gently . They were so thick the air was blue with them. The perfect snow that piles up on branches, outlining any vertical surface no matter how slim. It wasn't a storm those come in with a sideways twist. This one was just calmly wafting straight down. The kind of snow that blankets the world in a hush.

I remember emailing the photos to my associate out in California at the time. She was aghast that I should have to deal with such a mess. "Mess? What are you talking it about it didn't even drift!" I played that nice little snowfall for three days of freedom in the middle of a work week. Worked like a charm ... though now I am almost as spoiled with weather as she was.

It snowed once here last winter. Well trained stuff in the South, it only piles up on the grass! What a concept - snow with some courtesy. No scraping, no shoveling and no icy buildup on the roads. Excellent why can't it act so well up in the Flatlands? They tell me it used to snow a lot here, claiming sometimes they got up to 6 inches that stayed for a week. SIX INCHES! This is child's play.

Wasn't that fun? I was popping around in blogs for a bit and all I saw was vegetables and pickles being put up and such. Snow looked like it was just the ticket on a 95 degree day. A little something out of the ordinary for August. Eskimo Pie anyone? Snow Cone perhaps? A frozen lolly for Loose? (Its prob'ly not this hot in the UK - or is it?) Time to water the pots and refill my ice cube trays.

G.G.