We had quite a heavy snowfall today. Yesterday, the roads were a nightmare. I could not get up Stanley Hill--near the crest, the tires just spun, even with traction control. I did a reasonable three point turn and took the highway into Fredericton. Even on the main road, I had trouble. Ascending one of the long hills at c. 90 km, I found myself slipping while trying to maintain speed. I passed a number of accident sites.
On the way home that evening, conditions were much better. I had no trouble with the hills, and no one seemed to be slipping off the road. Still, speeds were generally low, and people seemed cautious.
Today, there was a gentle but significant snowfall. All the trees had a thick coating, and the sky was sufficiently overcast to produce that generally monochrome atmosphere. This was in the early morning--more snow arrived during the day, and when I arrived home I saw that Pat had made a brief stab at the driveway. He ran the plow up to the end and then turned and left. This was a little odd; the situation has not improved.
The dogs were quite happy with the conditions. Ollie occasionally crashed through the crust and had to bound his way out, but on the whole t he dogs were strongly pro-snow. Valla rolled about very happily, and only the possibility of extra food kept Frey from keeping his station in the trek.
I can enjoy snow when I know it cannot last long. All of this will be gone quite soon!
The radio tells me that the snow is "virtually gone" in the South; we must be in the North. Here, it is still plainly winter. There are definite signs, and it has been an outstandingly gentle season (especially compared to the last three years for snow accumulation, and the three before that for cold), but Spring is merely "in the air," and not yet on the ground. That may change very soon--the sun has definite punch and while the temperature drops sharply over night (about -10° shortly after dawn), the days are regularly above zero.
one of which was crumbling. The other was a leftover from the days when the washing machine was in the kitchen. The white patch is silicon tape--the thin-wall pipe was weeping, and the whole thing was about to crumble away. I put in a full-flow ball valve, replacing a metre of pipe in the process; the right-angle joint covered in verdigris in the foreground is where the old line meets the new. Well, now I can stop worrying about that particular piece deciding to burst while I'm away from home. However, maintenance, necessary though it is, is never as satisfying as building. If a repair goes well, you end up . . . back where you started.
After a week of very pleasant temperatures and some very heavy rain, we have dropped into a trough of bone-chilling cold. The freeze was so rapid that the trees had no chance to shed the water with which they were saturated; many are sheathed in ice, and some droplets froze like giant gemstones on the needles.
