It is a mystery

False spring hasn't been treating us particularly well. The top inch of exposed soil melts during the day but refreezes at night. The snow hasn't quite melted off despite multiple days of around 50F. The melting snow water has nowhere to go because the ground below the top inch is too frozen, but the soil on the top is just pure muddy muck, so the ground is either laying water, mud or both. It is currently 34F and raining. The ground refroze overnight, so the rain is just laying there. Winter returns this weekend, we'll be down below freezing during the day by Sunday, so everything will just be solid ice soon. 

I spent the last four days splitting wood as is expected. I cut and split two bins of basswood for maple syrup and cut up another whole log that is sitting on the ground right now. I still haven't worked on the huge chonker log but that is next for cutting, need to sharpen the chains again. I split another half tote of dead wood for the indoor wood stove. I also split most of a dump trailer of wood for the outdoor burner because the bobcat doesn't do well with mud or muck and I figured it would be nice to have the wood ready to go before the rain. Only goof with that I forgot one of the front tires has a slow leak and I popped the tire off the rim while I was running it. womp womp. But it should be easy to get it onto blocks and the tire off to see if we can get it back on the rim. The good thing is that the tires are really sturdy, so it should have survived the experience. 

Bin of wood. I could fill them a little more but I worry about the stakes breaking and also the tractor being able to lift them. We have a pretty beefy tractor with forks, but we put the bins/bags on top of a stack of pallets outside the milk house, so we don't need to go up and down stairs to fetch wood while boiling. 



Wood ready to split. I was so pleased to finish the one log before dark and the chainsaw ran out of gas last night.



My finger that I cut several weeks ago has fully healed up, I trimmed the skin flaps back once they callused up and starting catching on things, but more than a week after that, the skin is still really sensitive and not good with pressure. It should get sturdy again. 

I am making good progress on a number of crafting projects and with this rain, I'm planning to make some progress on the upstairs bathroom. Just haven't been super motivated. I've been reading a lot of fanfiction lately. Tis the season I guess. I am enjoying the increased light in the afternoons, trying to spent as much time outside as possible when the weather is decent. 

hopefully this breaks the drought and puts out the 1100 acre wildfire in massachusetts that isn't too far from me.  Other than 3/10th of an inch of rain two weeks ago, this is the first storm since the beginning of September. My parents had one other small storm at the end of September, but the whole northeast is parched. There's been a burn ban for months which is very unusual. Might even get close to an inch of rain! 

It might snow overnight but at the higher elevations, my parents definitely are getting snow but I probably won't.

Last night, the wind moved in and it was wild. There was rain too, but mostly really strong winds. It dropped from 55F to 20F overnight. During the night class, the rain was pounding on the wall in front of where I sit at my desk which was very disconcerting. 

I had to get Mara up after class to take her out, but I read a book until one of the storm blobs has passed through and the rain mostly stopped before I took her out, that was around 9:30pm. Around 10:30, the wind picked back up and was whipping and I heard a tree go down. I wandered around outside this morning trying to find it, but either it was in the swamp or up the hill, so I'll need to go further to see if I can find it.

Around midnight and 2am I was woken up again by the winds gusting. Estimated to be 60mph here. The house felt like it was moving almost the wind was so strong. Even if the house didn't move, I could feel the power of the wind. 

Wild. Despite the cold, there's no ice on the roads, I think the wind scoured it away. Still 20F with 4F wind chill today but 45F tomorrow and up to 60 by Tuesday.  

I'm out and about for work. F took the day off work and is staying home to keep an eye on things. It went out at around 11PM last night in hella wind. It was so windy it was really alarming and I woke up at 10:30PM and didn't fall back asleep until 1AM. 

Thankfully nothing came down around our house except small branches, so I'm pretty happy. I'll have to go for a walk in the woods in the next day or so and see if anything else is down in the woods. 

It's soggy but the rain has passed through so things will dry up soon enough. 

I'm in the office printing things, then driving and doing some small things, but mostly delivering a projector. I'm going to backtrack to the library in a minute to drop books off and pick up new ones since it's two minutes down the road. 

Onward. 

Work has been busy and tedious. We're gearing up for our big seed course again starting next week and the videos we're using from another organization don't have closed captions. We knew this from last year, since they're the same videos but we super didn't have time last year. But I figured out that office 365 word has a transcription ability and it honestly pretty solid. So I've been running all the videos through that, editing them since the program gets a little confused sometimes and uploading transcripts. I'm almost done with the videos that students have access to right now and waiting to hear back from our support person if they're able to add captions to other videos. If not, more transcript work for me. It takes about an hour for a fifteen minute video, which includes the time to play the video and have the program work. ETA: and my boss just said to add two more people into the course, which takes the same amount of time as adding the first 100. :\

We are settling in for a storm tomorrow night, predicted 6-12 inches of snow with some wind. I need to do my storm prep tomorrow morning, get out emergency bin, fill buckets of water, move things under cover that need to be under cover, make sure I know where the backup heater is, bump the heat up, make sure to have some made food on hand. I didn't get the generator fixed yet, it's on my list for next week for sure but with this amount of snow, I wouldn't expect the power to be out for more than a day. If it is, the backup indoor rated propane heater will get us through.

It's going to rain Wednesday and be 50F, so it'll just turn into a nasty mess.

I've been taking advantage of after-holiday sales and ordered some fabric (hoodie fleece and denim), and PowerBlock weights. I felt bad for the poor fedex delivery person who dropped them off, they're heavy. I need to figure out some kind of storage thing for them, my yoga mat and resistance bands in the living room. They're just in a pile right now. Maybe a tiny cabinet or something. If I build something, I need to buy more planks since I'm out of the nice stuff. 

I finished warping my next weaving project with only one counting mistake so that's good. Hopefully I can start getting it on the loom soon. It feels like I'm cranking through a lot of crafting stuff because I've had time even with work being busy. I started spinning on my electric wheel laying in bed and that's been wonderful because my feet can be toasty warm while I spin. I somehow lost the pattern book I was using for my sweater, I can't find it anywhere and there's not that many places it could be. I wonder if it fell out of my project bag at my parents or something, but I haven't seen it in months so I don't really know. I ordered another copy because it was $10 and it should be here soon which is great because I'm getting to the point where I need to do the arm gusset and I don't know how to do that. 

Mara's hanging in there. still happy enough and eating and drinking and sniffing everything. 

Sidejob work suddenly got busy, I had three requests this week, so that will start taking up some of my crafting time. 

 All I have to say about the storm we got it: Jesus fucking christ

We held an afternoon field meeting and finished up in time to hang in the barn for the potluck. There was hail there. It cleared out and I killed time before I left, hoping it would be through before I got there. I chased it east, and then drove into it for the last, should have been 15 mins of my drive. Took me 30, going about 30mph the whole way, dodging running water and downed branches. 

I wished I had my truck, but the fleet car got me through okay. Just hoping I didn't damage it when I ran over a decent size stick that I couldn't see because of the heavy rain. 

The power was on when I got home although it had been out at some point. Mara was very upset but I sat with her a bit and got her to take her meds, eat and we made a quick loop of the house so she could pee. 

We got an inch and a half of rain yesterday. I'm sure we got at least two or three in this storm. There's a tiny bit of water in the basement, which is new but we've had a lot of rain recently so I've been emptying the dehumidifier water every time I remember it, which is usually twice a day. Not even enough for a sump pump, so I'm not worried about it. 

I'm watching the lighting show out the window as I lay in bed. 

 We still have power! Although it is making some of the lights flicker and dim in a way that is extremely unsettling. I suspect those are the older lights that draw more power since the kitchen lights don't do that. The power did briefly go out and then came back, so I rushed to get our buckets filled, which I meant to do yesterday. That didn't happen because I called my dentist to ask about my appointment that was supposed to be this afternoon and they said, can you come in ASAP? So I did, which meant I got home and walked Mara as crafting started and made dinner during crafting. Went to bed and forgot about buckets. But we're good on water now (we have plenty of potable water too) and I sent the one important work email that needs to be sent. Technically I've got off work today since campus closed, but time sensitive emails for the course.

We canceled the Wed course meeting because honestly we assumed C and I wouldn't have power (we host and record the meetings) so at least there's less stuff to worry about. Thurs session is still on but requires a lot less effort.

We have 8 inches of snow that fell overnight, really heavy crunchy packing snow, so I don't expect our power to stay on for long. As I walked Mara, I could hear branches cracking on the trees. Now, we live next to a swamp, so those trees break really easy but still disconcerting. Mara is grumpy about the snow. She loves snow up to the point where it touches her belly, then she's very grumpy about it. I tell her that this is the life of every small dog ever but she just gives me a look.

We're due for at least another 6 inches of snow today and then the wind is going to pick up overnight. I'm going to clear some of the snow from the driveway during the day today in the hopes that it makes it easier later. Although the winds might just blow it all back on, so maybe I won't.

The plows have made one (middle of the night) and a half (just now) passes on the road and I saw two emergency jeeps driving by plus one person in a jeep who was probably getting off night shift. Most everyone is hunkered down because the roads are just fully snow.

Eta: lost power as of 1pm, lots of repair trucks out on the road. I cleared the important part if the driveway and we've gotten three inches of snow since then. Wind is starting to pick up

 Put my long johns on for the first time this season

We got somewhere between 2.5 and 3 feet. (ETA: actual reports at 40 inches at the airport here LOL) At that point, the details are less important, it's just a lot of snow. I dug an area in the backyard for Mara to pee and she had some fun running around in the dug area. She loves snow up to the point where it hits her belly, then she realizes what all the other dogs normally have to deal with. 

I also partially dug my truck out, but since the neighbor who is supposed to plow hasn't come by yet, it doesn't really matter. It doesn't really matter at all because I don't actually need to go anywhere until next week.  I don't think anyone has dug their drive out yet. 

It's a lot of snow! I only saw three vehicles out, one was a tractor trailer on the major highway and two were trucks on my road. The plows have come through but no one is going anywhere. 

I am working today but will finish digging my truck out later and getting Mara a bigger play area. Shoveling is my workout today. It's also deceptively cold out, doesn't feel like it but there's a wind chill. 15 F with wind chill around 3 F and I got one of my fingers chilled for a bit while I was shoveling. 

 The tropical storm is just starting to move through our area, mostly just the extended arm and it is raining pretty decently right now. Winds aren't supposed to be here until afternoon. It is cool for once and we turned off the AC and opened the windows. Sounds of rain are nice. Predicted cone looks like its going to roll right over our area but it seems to be losing power. 

I texted a friend down in MD, checking in on them. They've got power outages but seem okay so far. 

I'm working from home today because I think everyone in my industry is. Chatting with people yesterday sounded like everyone was scrambling to get stuff done before the storm. The amount of rain we're going to get means it will be a few days before it's dry enough to get into the fields. I get to go into the field tomorrow to count thrips on onions, which will be a delight I'm sure. 

We were scrambling to harvest watermelons from our variety trial yesterday. That just means I came home with four large watermelon halves (we did taste and brix tests but you only need one half for that and the other gets photographed and then we take them home.) and three small round watermelons. I ate so much watermelon yesterday. I fear a little for my digestive system. We've got another harvest of them on Friday, which means another taste test :)