My apologies to Mr. Shakespeare, but I've just got to let off some steam about this endless winter. What does this have to do with gardens, you ask? Well, maybe not much directly, but it sure seems like I'll never see ground again, let alone be able to get out there and do anything! Prairie Moon Nursery ships their bare root plants starting in April, and I have no idea if the 4+ foot piles of rock hard snow will be gone off the boulevard by then. The
Friends School Plant Sale is the first weekend in May and I'm not sure about that one, even. Well, OK, even I am pretty sure we'll be without snow by then. Oh, but this winter has seemed to last forever.
We started with a big storm November 13. I remember the date so well because I was doing a Harry Potter program at the library, and we had to make the 35 mile trek in a heavy, wet snow. We got there - and home - and so did nearly all the kids. We've had snow on the ground ever since. It hasn't been unusually cold (for Minnesota!), but lately it's not so often we go better than 90 straight days with snow cover. And it won't be gone anytime soon. Two weeks ago we had that lovely stretch in the '50s and lost a lot of snow. But Mother Nature can be so capricious. I KNEW spring wasn't here yet, but it was such a nice taste. That 13" Sunday was just a slap in the face. We've had terrible ice dams this winter. They've leaked into 3 different windows in 3 different parts of the house. We had people come out and steam them off. It worked. Sunday our roof was completely clear. Then the deluge. I got up on a ladder again to rake it off. Third time for me, and Joe has done it 3 or 4 times. And after all that, most of the valleys have at least 2 feet of snow above where I could reach. I just hope and pray we got enough to prevent more damage. We're seriously considering a metal roof, which would SOLVE the problem once and for all.
That's me up on the ladder, along with what it looked like when I was done.
We gave up shoveling that piece of sidewalk - which we have never done before - because every time we put more up there, it falls down, either on our walk or our neighbors.
I can tell you we've never had this much snow since living in this house. As of this date, this is the second snowiest winter ever, and we were both in apartments in '81-82. This is the 10th snowiest winter, with at least 5-6 weeks to go. I'd be really, really happy to not break the all time record of 98.6", as we'd need another 2 feet to get there!
Joe and I, being, well, us, decided to see if we could figure out how much snow we moved in our 7+ hours of shoveling. We knew there was about an inch of water in the snow. We know how much a gallon of water weighs (8 pounds) and figured out that gallon is 256 cubic inches. When you spread that gallon out one inch deep and 36 inches wide (the width of our sidewalk), it's seven inches long. So every time we cleared 7 inches of walk, we'd moved 8 pounds of snow. Multiply that out for the 150 feet of sidewalk, and you get more than 2000 pounds of snow. Add in our front walk, which is 50 feet long but wider, the driveway (short but packed very deep from plowing) and what I pulled off the roof, and we figure we moved at least 4 tons. No wonder we were tired. I had the easier part with the roof. Yes, I was on a ladder, but I was raking down, and the roof is steep, so gravity helped a lot! Joe had to lift - I can't do it that high anymore - so gravity hindered.
Joe read an article recently where the researchers think one result of global warming might be that England and other parts of Europe end up with colder, snowier winters, and the eastern coast of the US might also get more snow and big storms! Honestly, they say it's because of warming, and after reading the articles you get a good idea why. You've probably heard of the Gulf Stream, that warm current of water that flows north along the east coast of the U.S. Well, it turns south when it gets way up north, and flows south along the western coast of Europe. This warm (at least warm compared to the Artic!) water keeps those areas really mild in the winter. For example, the southern coast of Iceland is WAY warmer than Minnesota, even though it's so much further north. So, you may ask, why does the water move this way? Well, you've stuck with me this long, so I'll tell you. The water so far north is very cold (duh!) and quite salty. That makes it heavier than warmer, less salty water. It's so much heavier it sinks, and creates a kind of vacuum that is filled by the warm water flowing north. But - you knew there had to be one - with the warming of the northern extremes of the planet, there's less ice, so the water gets warmer. Plus so much ice is melting that the water is less salty. If this goes far enough, the water won't sink and the current won't flow. This will have a major worldwide impact on weather and what lives in the sea and more.
Windows to the Universe has a great graphic showing the current, and the article is good, too. The Gulf Stream is part of the Great Conveyor. There's an expedition starting soon that's going to try to figure out how fast the water is sinking. I sure wouldn't want to do this - they're going on foot from the North Pole to Greenland!
OK, you've gotten to the bitter end. You get a prize! Kidding, but thanks for reading the whole thing. I got to have my rant, and maybe pass along some interesting information. I'll try to make my next post more cheerful - and really about gardens!
Friends School Plant Sale is the first weekend in May and I'm not sure about that one, even. Well, OK, even I am pretty sure we'll be without snow by then. Oh, but this winter has seemed to last forever.
We started with a big storm November 13. I remember the date so well because I was doing a Harry Potter program at the library, and we had to make the 35 mile trek in a heavy, wet snow. We got there - and home - and so did nearly all the kids. We've had snow on the ground ever since. It hasn't been unusually cold (for Minnesota!), but lately it's not so often we go better than 90 straight days with snow cover. And it won't be gone anytime soon. Two weeks ago we had that lovely stretch in the '50s and lost a lot of snow. But Mother Nature can be so capricious. I KNEW spring wasn't here yet, but it was such a nice taste. That 13" Sunday was just a slap in the face. We've had terrible ice dams this winter. They've leaked into 3 different windows in 3 different parts of the house. We had people come out and steam them off. It worked. Sunday our roof was completely clear. Then the deluge. I got up on a ladder again to rake it off. Third time for me, and Joe has done it 3 or 4 times. And after all that, most of the valleys have at least 2 feet of snow above where I could reach. I just hope and pray we got enough to prevent more damage. We're seriously considering a metal roof, which would SOLVE the problem once and for all.
That's me up on the ladder, along with what it looked like when I was done.
We gave up shoveling that piece of sidewalk - which we have never done before - because every time we put more up there, it falls down, either on our walk or our neighbors.
I can tell you we've never had this much snow since living in this house. As of this date, this is the second snowiest winter ever, and we were both in apartments in '81-82. This is the 10th snowiest winter, with at least 5-6 weeks to go. I'd be really, really happy to not break the all time record of 98.6", as we'd need another 2 feet to get there!
Joe and I, being, well, us, decided to see if we could figure out how much snow we moved in our 7+ hours of shoveling. We knew there was about an inch of water in the snow. We know how much a gallon of water weighs (8 pounds) and figured out that gallon is 256 cubic inches. When you spread that gallon out one inch deep and 36 inches wide (the width of our sidewalk), it's seven inches long. So every time we cleared 7 inches of walk, we'd moved 8 pounds of snow. Multiply that out for the 150 feet of sidewalk, and you get more than 2000 pounds of snow. Add in our front walk, which is 50 feet long but wider, the driveway (short but packed very deep from plowing) and what I pulled off the roof, and we figure we moved at least 4 tons. No wonder we were tired. I had the easier part with the roof. Yes, I was on a ladder, but I was raking down, and the roof is steep, so gravity helped a lot! Joe had to lift - I can't do it that high anymore - so gravity hindered.
Joe read an article recently where the researchers think one result of global warming might be that England and other parts of Europe end up with colder, snowier winters, and the eastern coast of the US might also get more snow and big storms! Honestly, they say it's because of warming, and after reading the articles you get a good idea why. You've probably heard of the Gulf Stream, that warm current of water that flows north along the east coast of the U.S. Well, it turns south when it gets way up north, and flows south along the western coast of Europe. This warm (at least warm compared to the Artic!) water keeps those areas really mild in the winter. For example, the southern coast of Iceland is WAY warmer than Minnesota, even though it's so much further north. So, you may ask, why does the water move this way? Well, you've stuck with me this long, so I'll tell you. The water so far north is very cold (duh!) and quite salty. That makes it heavier than warmer, less salty water. It's so much heavier it sinks, and creates a kind of vacuum that is filled by the warm water flowing north. But - you knew there had to be one - with the warming of the northern extremes of the planet, there's less ice, so the water gets warmer. Plus so much ice is melting that the water is less salty. If this goes far enough, the water won't sink and the current won't flow. This will have a major worldwide impact on weather and what lives in the sea and more.
Windows to the Universe has a great graphic showing the current, and the article is good, too. The Gulf Stream is part of the Great Conveyor. There's an expedition starting soon that's going to try to figure out how fast the water is sinking. I sure wouldn't want to do this - they're going on foot from the North Pole to Greenland!
OK, you've gotten to the bitter end. You get a prize! Kidding, but thanks for reading the whole thing. I got to have my rant, and maybe pass along some interesting information. I'll try to make my next post more cheerful - and really about gardens!
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