Snowscape

[vtsteam]

I've seen a lot of snows here but the one that fell last night was particularly beautiful. Just thought I'd share views in different directions from the porch this morning:

[A7er]

That is an amazing scene to watch change with the seasons. Have you thought about setting up a fixed camera mount and taking one or two pictures each day for a year to turn into a movie? I would enjoy watching it.
Lee

[Davyboy]

Great pics.  We got 6 - 10 inches here in Wisconsin yesterday.  It always looks nicer after the plowing is done.  I like the John Deere.  I'm envious of your location, both locally and regionally.  Is that in Vermont, vtsteam?  I've never been to the northeast, someplace I'd like to visit.
Davy

[RReid]

Beautiful! I miss scenes like that, but not the cold or the shoveling!

[vtsteam]

Thanks Lee, Davy, Ron.  Truly unusual is that the snow is still on the trees again this morning. Usually wind or rising temps destroys that type of attachment fairly quickly. It only happens rarely like that, with each individual branch distinct. A combination of wet sleet cooling and forming a rough surface on the twigs first, then fluffy light snow sticking to that and building up over many hours.

Lee, I hadn't thought about photographing each day and making a movie here. Sounds like a neat idea. So much to do here, though, I think just a once in awhile photo will be the best I can do.

Davy, yes it is Vermont... the very southeastern corner. Somehow I imagine Wisconsin must be similar, but I don't really know, as, well, like you, I've never been there!

Ron, I'm with you on the cold...I seem to be getting more "allergic" to it with each passing year! But this is home. Built it myself -- even cut trees and sawed the wood for it, so hard to imagine leaving it.

[vtsteam]

It's hard to give an impression of what it really looks like with every branch covered. Here's an enlargement of a corner of the tractor photo, and even that doesn't really show it the way it looks. By the way, for scale, those hemlock logs are 16" diameter. Some of the white pines in other photos are 100 feet tall.

[Kim]

That does look beautiful, Steve!

But I'll let you guys keep the cold and snow up in the northeast there.  I like my (generally) temperate climate.

Kim, official weather weenie

[A7er]

Perhaps if you set up an automatic camera to take pictures when you aren't free to do so, you might, just might get a snap of bigfoot. Does he/she live near you?

[vtsteam]

Sorry Kim, but we just sent a package of cold to you before we realized. Well, maybe you can re-gift it!   

Don't blame you at all of course for enjoying temperate climate. I just spent a couple hours out in a sub-freezing workshop trying to finish up the rotary table. I couldn't take any more. Feet were frozen, so back up the (admittedly beautiful) hill and into the warm house to type this. I feel like I'm working at a glacial pace on projects here. So to speak! 

Lee, we don't have bigfoot -- that's out nearer Kim, but Lake Champlain, which runs down a large part of the state has Champ, a lake monster. So they say. I believe a searcher's ability to view it is enhanced by alcohol.

[tghs]

a winter photo from North Carolina this morning, (someone on another sight wanted to see a holly tree) cheers (I did grow up in Minnesota and Wisconsin, once spent a january in northern china and got an entirely new concept of the word cold)

[propforward]

Those are fabulous snowscapes. Such scenes do help the winter become more bearable. Although heating is perhaps even better, but such views take your breath away (along with sheer cold of course).

[vtsteam]

tghs, that is a familiar scene, too. I lived in Murfreesboro one winter in the mid 70's.

Twenty years later took a homemade houseboat from Portsmouth, VA down the intracoastal across Florida and up to Punta Gorda where I stayed for a time on the Peace River. In North Carolina, I well remember weathering a bad December storm in Belhaven, and a white knuckle crossing of Albemarle Sound, and a rough escape down the Alligator River. 

Thanks kindly, propforward, happy to share that kind of rare occasion even here. 

[MJM460]

With all that snow around, I thought that perhaps I could add a little balance to the forum.  After all, we are an international group.  And for half of the world, it is summer.

So a picture taken today, early afternoon.  A very pleasant 21 C.

Mind you it’s a strange warmth on this part of the coast, the wind hails straight from Antarctica, the nearest land to the south, and feels like it, but the sun will burn you without lots of sunscreen (SPF 50+).  So, out of the wind in the car, or even outdoor windbreaks, all the warmth you can handle, but in the shade, the wind feels very cold.  Needless to say, all the young ones are swimming, and the girls all prefer a bikini rather than a wet suit.  And the temperature of 21 is only part of the story.  Inland a few km, the temperature is much more uniformly warm.

Mind you later in the week, the forecast is for high thirties even here, and we will be glad to send you some.

MJM460

[propforward]

Very nice - I look forward to the warm weather returning. Generally I think I handle the cold better than extreme heat. But when it is -20F (or colder) outside I must admit that I forget that.

[vtsteam]

That looks great MJM460! 

Unfortunately today is going to have to be a day of preparation since we're predicted to get 5 to 8 inches more snow overnight and 2 to 4 tomorrow, turning to rain in the afternoon.

This is a bad situation since the trees still have that heavy layer of ice and snow on them. They are not going to take much more weight before limb's and whole trees come down. I expect power outages with limbs breaking lines, so I'll get the Lister type generator ready.

The tractor generally plows up to 8" of snow, but more becomes difficult to move and place. We still have 2" down from the last storm (I plowed once but there was additional after). We live in the woods with 600 feet of driveway to plow to get to the road.

So I'm going to need to get plowing done today for the small amount already down, in anticipation of possibly 8" overnight. Then again early in the morning. And possibly a third time during tomorrow day before it turns to rain (and the resultant slush freezes again to ice.

My daughter is going to try brushing the snow off of ornamental bushes and fruit trees with a broom today because  they won't take more weight. All in all, I think we will be well prepared, but machining projects might be taking a back seat today.