Happiness is: Good snow and my John Deere
‘Tis Sunday morning, January 11, 2009, and everything is right with the world.
The snow accumulation overnight was somewhere between six inches and six feet, depending on which liar ended the conversation.
It was a delightful sight. The brilliantly red cardinals were feasting in the sunlight with that bright, sunlit white background.
‘Tis good to be alive, to enjoy the music such a scene creates in our heads.
A couple times a week some former friends (who have forsaken Michigan’s early year months in favor of southern climes), call to tell me how cold it is down there.
The conversation starts with, ‘How much snow you got?? And, continues with, ‘We may get up to 61 degrees today.?
I enthusiastically respond with, ‘We’ve got six inches of snow right now, with, hopefully, another six coming tonight.? Then I add, ‘Right now the temperature is six, but I’m hoping, it’ll drop to six below tonight.?
This Sunday morning, aboard my 15-hp John Deere, I felt like Tim Allen as the Tool Man in his television show, ‘Home Improvement.?
‘Har, har! More power!?
The temp was 15 above, the breeze slightly from the southwest and the snow deep enough for great outdoor enjoyment.
I turned my 42-inch snow blowing machine into the wind, just to feel the wind blow wisps of snow into my bare face.
Refreshingly fantastic!
I finished my circular drive, went to the roadside and cleared the way for Jerry, the paper deliverer and the mail person (even though there will be no delivery this Monday), then headed for an around-the-house trip so Shayna’s run isn’t slowed by the snow.
It also gives her a less-cooling kneeling area. Always thinking of her comfort.
It was a delightful half hour. I sang out loud, waved to my neighbor-snow-blower, and every car, and paused to look up for a while to give Him credit for this delightful day.
Wonder if my golfing, semi-warm friends down south ever have winter days that they can enjoy like I do ours?
Hopefully, in a couple weeks I’ll have more days that will send me rejoicing when we combine snowmobiling with fellowship in Michigan’s great Upper Peninsula.
Eat your hearts out, you palm and sand lovers, you who have taken to speaking Spanish and are still unable to communicate with them or nature.
You who think a pond in the middle of a grassy fairway is more challenging than an Arctic Cat breaking a trail through the Hiawatha National Forest.
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The earth warming theorists have now convinced the National Weather Service to join them in their erroneous thinking.
This apparently-political bureau has adopted a new formula that lessens the reported impact of wind chills.
Under the old way, if the temperature was a minus 5 with winds up to 15 mph, the wind chill would be minus 42 degrees.
Currently that combination would produce a minus 27 degrees.
Another victory for Al Gore-type thinkers.
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Hawaii moved its analog tv signal elimination ahead of the other 49 states for the birds. They want to remove analog transmission towers on the slope of Maui’s Haleakala volcano to save an endangered bird species.
That’s where the Hawaiian dark-rumped petrels nest. Long live the dark-rumped petrel.