Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Blizzard/Schmizzard; Disaster.


We're in the middle of a "blizzard" here, as anyone with any wireless communication device doubtless knows. The weather-casters have orgies for weather like this. "Bitter Cold! Huge Snowfall! ... House High Drifts!" etc., etc.
I do have an immediate complaint; I've never, ever, experienced a blizzard like the ones Laura Ingalls repeatedly describes; in 30+ years of living here. I'm sorry to say it, but I'm pretty sure Laura fudged her climate data.

Yes, it's a serious storm; life threatening; for knuckleheads, greenhorns, and the unlucky. About 20" of snow, we think; it's incredibly hard to measure with the wind moving everything. 25-40 mph winds. Dropping temps, headed for 0°F, with windchills far lower.

But, dang it- I can still see the THWASPCO, quite clearly. No chance, whatsoever, of getting lost enroute. In fact, even at the peak of the storm, I could still see the other side of the valley, 100 yards away. Sigh.

Sharon, over at her new blog address, has already posted a compleat compendium of what to do- when the power goes out- which certainly is usually the most common problem with big storms. I put up a little response in the comments there; mostly, we're snug.

There are, however, other problems storms like this can precipitate.

The cats got up on the table, and ate the butter.

Normally, they're much better behaved. Caught in the act, and ratted out by Smidgen, they were tossed, literally, out the door into a snowdrift. Ha.

In the aftermath of this financial and emotional catastrophe, it developed that the cats were, perhaps, not entirely at fault...

They were hungry. Their dry food feeder was... empty.

We failed them. Sad to say. No wonder the poor dears were breaking laws...

Ok, get the cat food and feed them.

What?

NO CAT FOOD?????

HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN??????

There is no getting out of here for several days, for sure.

As good conscientious preppers, here is fodder for squinty eyes and muttered remonstrations. "You were in town last..." "yeah, well, you emptied the last bag- why wasn't it on the list? ha?"

A failure of the process. A senescent seneschal? A charlatan chatelaine? Forgot your ADD meds didja?


The potential for violence, in a little cabin lost in the snow- is frightening.

So if you don't hear anything from us again-

Either we've all killed each other, or we've been eaten by cats.

A fearsome foreshadowing, surely, of the collapse to come.

8 comments:

nettle said...

Kitty jackpot! Canned tuna, canned salmon, ground beef, scrambled eggs, chicken livers... this will be the best blizzard ever for them, so long as you have a steady supply of cat-friendly people food.

I miss dramatic weather and envy you your blizzard. By February or so, they're no fun anymore, but early-season blizzards are the best.

Farmer's Daughter said...

Haha! That's why we feed our dogs plenty of people food.

I'm envious of your storm. We had a snow day here, and got only about 2 inches. I'm not complaining about the day off (especially since my maternity leave will mean I don't have to make it up!) but I miss really big storms! I remember years as a child, not so long ago, when we would get three days off school for one storm. I'd like to see that storm now!

MiscellanyEsq said...

Haha, good luck there.

I've been missing your regular posting here and hope, for selfish reasons, that you get back to posting more frequently. Meanwhile, I've been getting my fill at TAE. I literally open do a CTRL+F search for Greenpa. I have gotten to reading many of the other comments over there and have found it to be a very useful site. Not nearly as entertaining and educational as yours, but an alright substitute while I've been holding out for cold weather to slow up your outside work.

Anonymous said...

Oh dear! Well, I'm sure you'll all manage for a few days, until you can make a town run.

I'm not sure how much we have, but it's over a foot anyway. Rain has started flattening things down a little. If it gets cold enough overnight, that's when the real excitement will (potentially) happen. Although the utility companies or whoever's in charge were busy trimming tree branches this fall, so hopefully no big power issues here this winter.

I suspect there was more snow to be had back in the day.... my dad had a photo from when he was a kid living in Maine, where the snow had drifted up the side of the house, up to the third floor. Don't know how much snow had actually fallen in that storm, but I expect you need quite a bit to get that drift.

Heather G

Aimee said...

when I run out of catfood and can't get out, I open a can of tuna... for ME NOT the cats! But I do pour the tuna-water over torn up bread, and cats eat it right up.

Doyu Shonin said...

We do the tuna-water thingy too.

One of our hens finally met up with a red-tailed hawk but I interrupted their dinner and salvaged her for the crock pot. When I do this I put in the heart and some other bits, which I fish out later for kitty and then any bread or whatever that's for her gets a dose of the broth, as well.

We got only 8F (no snow at all) but it has killed the electric pump for awhile and we are doing the buckets-on-a-yoke thing from a hole in the creek for the birdyard.

Have been missing ya, GP.

Anonymous said...

i read your about me paragraph and wow 61 kids??? you must be pretty busy 8)

Hank Roberts said...

> Anonymous Anonymous said...
> i read your about me paragraph

And failed the Turing Test, subtype Punctuation, the comma and its uses