Fred and Valerie

A time-lapse of the One Foot of snow that fell on our area this past weekend.

Two weeks ago, we got about 8 inches of snow. That’s typically a lot of snow for our area and is in line for our yearly “big snow.” Little did we know that the actual “big snow” was still to come.

As of right now, we have 29 inches of snow in Stuarts Draft. The previous records for a December snowfall in the area were somewhere in the 14 to 16 inch range. Despite the snow starting at 3:00 yesterday, most areas were well beyond that record by noon today.

We measured the snow on our deck and had 13 inches at 1:00 am. By the time 7:00 am came around we had 20 inches of snow. It was up to 22 inches by 9:00 and continued to snow all day.

Looking at the traffic cams, the road conditions are horrible and there are plenty of “parking lots” on Interstate-81. At one point earlier in the day we could see people walking along the interstate because they had been parked for so long.

While I managed to shovel out an area of snow on the driveway so that our car can get out if they plow the road, there’s still over 2 feet of snow on the road because the plows haven’t come to our area yet. In fact, we’re figuring there aren’t many snow plows out there at the moment considering the road conditions, number of stranded vehicles clogging the roads, and the continuation of the snow.

We’re actually starting to wonder if we’ll be able to get out of our driveway by Monday morning. We’ll see…

Backyard Gardens

Unfortunately, the backyard gardens have been put on the backburner for a little while. It’s been tough to find time on the weekends to actually do the remaining work and, honestly, it’s starting to get really hot. For now, the gardens will remain on the backburner at least until the painting is done.

Indoor Painting

The color is a “go” and we’re well on our way to starting the painting. Most of the great room and all of the foyer is taped off for the trim. Once the rest of the great room is taped off, we’ll buy the paint and start the actual painting. We’re hoping to be able to start that this weekend or very soon afterwards.

Photo Hanging

This project goes hand-in-hand with the Indoor Painting project. Besides just painting the walls, we’re also working on hanging up a lot of the photos from our trips together. Our current focus is the great room, foyer, hallway, and guest bathroom, though we have done the planning for all the other rooms so that we already know what size frames to buy.

The great room will have three 24 x 36-inch photos, one 22 x 28, a 16 x 20, and two 8 x 10 photos added to the walls with our 16 x 20 wedding photo and the 24 x 36 honeymoon collage. So far, only one of the new 24 x 36 frames has a photo in it. We used Silent Fort for that frame. The others are either on their way or are waiting for mats.

The foyer got two 8 x 10 frames and already have the photos and mats and are done. The photos we used are Courtyard Staircase and Memorial de la Deportation.

The hallway will have a 16 x 20 and an 8 x 10 added to the many photos of us already hanging on the wall.

The guest bathroom is complete with an 8 x 10 (Fishing Nets), and two 11 x 17 frames (Monte Carlo, Monaco and Docked Boats in Split, Croatia).

We’re working on a couple of “home improvement” projects this Spring and Summer and while we plan on taking our time with them, they’re starting off quite well.

Backyard Gardens
For a while now, we’ve wanted to do something with the rock our developer put in the backyard near the ditch. In theory, the rock is supposed to keep any land from washing away, but after having been here for almost five years we realized it’s going to take something on the order of several hurricanes to make the rock even remotely necessary. Besides, it could still be done in a better looking manner.

This Spring, I started changing those rock piles into retaining wall gardens. So far, I’ve only worked on one of the two sections and I’ve managed to get all of that section’s rock moved up to the front rock pile and have about two dozen of the retaining wall bricks in place. It’ll probably take another two dozen retaining wall bricks before it’s ready to be dug up for a garden.

Interior Painting
The interior walls of the house are still white (really, more of an off-white or eggshell) almost five years after we bought the house. It’s time for color!

Our good friend Kris played Martha Stewart and helped us decide on some colors. Just yesterday, we bought a quart of the color we selected (“Wetlands” from Kilz, which is a sage-ish green) and painted a five-foot by four-foot section of the Great Room wall to see if we like it.

So far, we’re liking the color. If it’s still acceptable come the end of the week, we’ll likely start preparing for mass painting of the Great Room and picking out colors for other areas of the house.

The lawn has officially been cut and our house no longer looks like it was situated in the middle of a jungle.

I cut the lawn last Sunday and it’s pretty much rained everyday since then. Because of that the lawn is becoming way more than overgrown and there’s little to no hope that I’ll be able to cut it again any time soon.

On the plus side, the grass is green and the garden is flourishing!

5:00 AM, Fri., April 24, 2009: 36°

5:00 PM, Sat., April 25, 2009: 91°

Lest you think think it was just a difference between AM and PM (though that would still be a huge swing), the temperature at 5:00 AM today was 61°.

At this point, I’d be okay with Mother Nature raining on the Independence Day festivities. We’d be okay with rain, period.

That’s the exact quote of what I said a couple of days ago. The current forecast?

Friday (Independence Day): 40% chance of Thunderstorms

The good news is that there is also a 50% chance of thunderstorms on Saturday, 40% chance on Sunday, and 30% chance on Monday.

Despite the overwhelming number of dark clouds that covered the city late yesterday afternoon, we managed to pick up just 0.15 inches of rain; hardly enough to do anything to change our recent drought-like conditions.

But, Valerie reminded me of something I failed to point out in yesterday’s post about the lack of rain: the strips of green.

As we drive through our neighborhood to our house, we pass several homes. With the weather becoming drier and the lawns turning from green to brown, something odd has happened. Some of our neighbors’ (not directly next door, but down the road) yards have developed strips of green grass. With the strips of green grass starting at the house, it’s where they end that provides a clue as to what’s going on.

Every yard in our neighborhood has a sewage pipe cap that allows access to each home’s sewage line right near the edge of the property. Each strip of green grass ends at the home’s pipe cap, which leads one to wonder if there’s some sort of leak involved and if all the homes with the green strips of grass were put up by the same builder.

Nevertheless, the shocks of green in an otherwise brown yard are interesting to see.

Whatever we were supposed to have for Spring never arrived. We’re 10 days past the Summer Solstice (June 20) and the effects of our dry, hot Spring are still evident.

Our Spring in Stuarts Draft started with highs around 60 and lows around 40. Those temperatures continued, edging slightly upward, until we had highs in the 90s to kickstart June. Lows around 70 at that time made for a bit higher electric bill than normal as the air conditioner had to work a bit of overtime.

But the heat wouldn’t have been so bad if there was some rain to go with it. From March 20 to June 20 (Spring), Stuarts Draft had 11.55 inches of rainfall. That sounds like a decent amount, but exactly 2.00 inches of that rainfall came in a four-day span from April 19-22. There were several other large rainfalls throughout our Spring:

• 0.72 inches on April 3
• 1.02 inches on April 26-28
• 1.83 inches on May 8-12

Combined with the 2.00 inches mentioned above, that’s 5.57 inches, or nearly half the Spring total, in a total of 13 days.

By comparison, we had 57 days with 0.00 inches of precipitation measured during Spring. We also had four days with measurements of 0.01 inches and 11 days with measurements of 0.10 or less. In total, that’s 72 days, or well over two months, of one tenth of an inch of rain or less.

And the dryness continues. Counting last night’s quick rain, we’ve had just 0.97 inches of rain since our last good rainfall on June 8 (1.75 inches from June 4-8). That includes 14 days of no rain at all.

So it’s no small wonder that it’s starting to look like Fall has arrived early in our area. The grass and the weeds seem to be fighting to see which can create the largest patch of brown on the lawn. I cut the grass on the highest setting on the lawnmower last time (about two weeks ago) and that’s the only thing that has saved some of the grass to this point. Our neighbors’ yards look like we’re well into November.

Various neighbors are trying their best to salvage what they can. A small oscillating sprinkler is only going to do so much, however. It’s not likely to heal the cracks in the dry dirt, nor is it likely to create an oasis it what is quickly becoming a desert.

While some areas of our country are flooding, ours is starved for water. And just when we thought we might get some, with forecasts calling for a 50-70% chance of rain from last Thursday through Sunday, the storms miss us and provide their relief to other areas of the state.

Our current forecast calls for a 50% chances of thunderstorms this afternoon and a 20% chance of isolated thunderstorms tonight. After that, the forecast doesn’t call for any rain until a 30% chance of thunderstorms on Friday, July 4.

At this point, I’d be okay with Mother Nature raining on the Independence Day festivities. We’d be okay with rain, period.