So Monday night it was 25 degrees below zero at my house. The next morning it had warmed up to a balmy twelve. By Tuesday evening it was 42 degrees and raining.
Crap.
You may recall that in years past I've had some issues getting up my driveway when it rains on top of the ice. But now I have the wonderous Rock Ridge Services on my side. Just about the time I was feeling a strange combination of persecution, outrage (it's JANUARY IN ALASKA, for %#^$ sake! It's not SUPPOSED to be 42 freaking degrees!), gratitude that I didn't have to drive to work on disasterous roads the next day, and resignation (oh, well... you deal with what you have to deal with), I hear a strange growling rumble outside. Eh? Could it be...? It IS! FW of Rock Ridge is out in my driveway with the sanding truck, making my ice-white, running-with-rain driveway look like a dirt road.
Ahhh. I feel so pampered. (This may be an Alaska girl thing... who else will feel all cosseted if you bring them dirt?)
The next day it was still 42 and still raining. And the next. Friday I went to work and it was 52 degrees.
We've had the mid-January warm-up before, one year or another. I don't recall ever having a 67 degree temperature change in 24 hours, but maybe we have. However, I'm CERTAIN that since I've lived in Alaska I've never seen it break 50 dregrees in January. January. The coldest month of the year. In theory, anyway.
So, as if that wasn't extreme enough, on the evening of the freak 52 degree weather I left the balmy climes of Alaska (although by then it had droppped from 52 to about 45 - but still raining) and I am now blogging at you from central Florida, nearly as far away from Alaska as I can get without leaving the US. I could go to the Keys, I guess, if I really wanted to make a point; and as jet-lagged as I am at this stage, I feel like I could just about drift out the window and float there without the airplane.
So, as long as the WiFi holds out, I will see what I can do about showing up here (in between trick-or-treating in the exhibit hall, catching up with sleep and with old vet school friends, and... Hmmm, what else was it...? Oh, yeah, attending classes for the CE I'm ostensibly AT this meeting for...!) I will apologize in advance for fat-fingering the keys more than usual (just getting used to the netbook's smaller keyboard, and I'm one of the world's less acconplished typists to begin with - and did I mention jet-lagged? - so the results may be either hilarious, pathetic, or unintelligible.
Possibly all three.
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(This may be an Alaska girl thing... who else will feel all cosseted if you bring them dirt?)
Not to try and top you, but -- that made me remember that a friend of mine is supposed to drop off a load of free hot-composted manure for me tomorrow. I'm putting in a raised bed garden in the back this year. (Yes, it's soon to be planting time in Texas!) While dirt may seem like a strange thing to desire, it really can get worse...
DVM's wife is down there with you, enjoying the sunshine and warmth.
http://dvmswife.blogspot.com/
I know where your typical january weather went too, PA has been frigid this week....I am ready for those 45 degree days, even if it does mean pulling out the plans for an ark....MM, want to drive another boat? This one, hopefully would be on TOP of the water tho!
I'm with KK, I love me some good compost in the spring. My backyard butts up to a swamp and since I am the low point in the neighborhood, I often have a temporary swimming pool for the dogs when we get the first rain....so I am all about raised beds and good dirt. With fresh supplies of pre-dirt arriving at the barn, I make up my piles all summer and let them cook down all winter.
Enjoy the conference, enjoy the time away from the office!
Holy cow, it was warmer in Alaska than in Illinois! We've had some frigid cold here lately (at least, what's considered frigid for us!)
Enjoy balmy Florida! I managed a small jumper barn in Cocoa for about a year and nothing can beat weather that requires shorts on Christmas Day.
Holly, sorry about the weather! I didn't MEAN for us to send it to you, but I guess it had to go somewhere.... meanwhile teh FLoridians are all complaining about the cold and I'm in shirtsleeves, enjoying the balmy weather.
KK - you got that right. I routinely thank people for bringing me baggies full of dog crap. Worse, I ASK them - sometimes repeatedly - to bring me dog crap.
We're a strange lot, animal people.
Yikes! 67 degrees in one day!! We've had 50 degree changes but I won't complain about those anymore! :-)
Actually, I usually don't complain about them anyway because they almost always are temperature drops, instead of rises.
Enjoy the conference! Hope you got some good sleep.
I've done those kinds of temp swings, but it's been a long, long time... Chicago in a bad winter to Orlando comes to mind, but I was just a baby Nuc in those days, and that's been a while!
27 deg(f) and snowing here in DE(USA) this AM, a solid fifteen degree jump from 24 hours previous. Yeah, It's colder in Delaware than in Wasilla this weekend past. A LOT colder. Go figure.
Enjoy your conference, and happy reunion with Raven, later this week!
Thanksgiving dinner was had with other members of the rescue I volunteer with -- and of course, over the dinner table, conversation with another rescue member who's as fascinated by canine nutrition and commercial dog food ingredients and labeling as I am started to talk shop. Of course, when dog people start talking nutrition, the conversation immediately turns to poop. The hostess overheard and acted incredibly offended -- "How DARE you two talk poop over my dinner table?! ... just kidding, I know you two. Carry on."
AKDD, you'll be glad (?) to know that thanks to Henry's intestinal quibbles I hold on to an array of old prescription medicine containers for the sole purpose of collecting stool samples as needed... which has led to some interesting questions from the roomie when I have a nice loose sample cooling it's heels in the fridge before taking it to the vet. "Um, what is that?" "Dude, you should know this by now. You're dating a vet." "Yeah, but she doesn't keep poop in the refrigerator at home..."
Ha! And just as you're talking about the extremes, AKDD, I find via NPR, a blog about living in Tok, Alaska... where a woman posted a picture of a -71 degree F reading on a weather station.
Yeah, rocks and dirt are great. Another 'all streams lead to my yard' resident, here.
Sis L got me a load of 50/50 (dirt/mushroom soil) one year for Christmas. And then there is the never-to-be-forgotten year that epeepunk got me a rock for Christmas. One rock. A very large rock, for the garden. I forget exactly how many pounds it was, but they delivered it with a crane. Yeah, rocks, dirt, compost, that's happy stuff.
I have one friend who delights in watching the weather report on the news and seeking out the times when the state high and the state low are 100 or more degrees apart. Happens more often than you'd think. The last two days it's been a mere 97 degrees between them. Chicken feed.
OOoh, Chicken! I should look up THEIR temperature. They always seem to be bitterly cold in the winter....
Dang, Hedra, now you have me getting all spring fever-y....
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