"Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed."- Friedrich Nietzsche
Recently we were dealt a couple of weeks' worth of very cold weather - dropping to slightly above or below zero degrees F (-18C) each night. It would approach freezing during the warmest part of the day, and at those points I would take the dog for a walk, and hope she wouldn't pull me off my feet on the ice.
The car is a bit unhappy at those temperatures. You can't tell that the heated seat is working - at least until the inside of the car is somewhat warmed up. The switches are all really gummy because the grease in them has thickened up. The rear window defroster absolutely doesn't work when zero degree airflow is going over it at 70 MPH, so the rear window remains frosty until you come to a stop and the interior air combined with the heating element can warm the glass. The front windshield isn't much better. Also the inside of the car isn't really comfortable until it has been driven for about 15 miles. I think part of that has to do with the fact that the car was bent by a previous owner, and the doors don't seal very well.
Fun story about the cold from this past week: The cold weather makes the snow very light and easily blown by the wind - something that I did not take into account one morning before driving to work. I started the old Subaru up after unplugging the engine heater. While it idled, I brushed all the fluffy snow off the windshield and back glass, got in and headed down the road. When the windshield is that cold, my breath and snow-melt from my boots condenses inside and fogs it up. It takes about a mile of driving before the inside of the windshield is warm enough to clear the fog and see through very well.
By the time I got to the end of the road I live on, the windshield was mostly cleared up and I was no longer leaning to the middle of the vehicle and down toward the dash to see out. At that point it was time to get on the highway and as I got up to about 70 MPH on the on-ramp, a huge blanket of fluffy snow lofted itself off the hood onto the windshield, re-freezing it. I turned on the wipers, but the glass had cooled and the inside had instantly fogged up again. So I was going 70 MPH, trying to merge onto the highway, with a two-inch slit clear at the bottom of the windshield to see through. Not funny in the moment, but funny now.
Below: A couple of days off work with a lot of snow build-up.
This past three-day (President's Day) weekend it began snowing on Friday, and never really stopped until late Monday night. As a result, I spent quite a bit of time plowing snow. On Sunday I got out of bed early and drove the 10 miles to church so that I could plow the parking lot ahead of the service. The timing was a bit tricky: I wanted to be done before anyone arrived so that I would not have to work around parked vehicles, but I also wanted it to be done as close as possible to the service so that the ongoing snow didn't build up too much before anyone had to walk on it. I managed to time it just about right. I cleared the driveway and those of a couple of neighbors in the afternoon on Sunday as well.
Then on Monday, I got a call from one of our church members who has cancer, asking if I would clear his driveway. I told him I'd be there in an hour. He lives quite a ways from where I live, a loooong way off the paved road, and hadn't cleared his driveway recently. It was a project, but he had a doctor appointment that he wasn't going to be able to keep without removing the snow first.
It's a good thing he called at that point. When I went to the shop to get the plow truck, the air compressor was running hard and hot, and the shop was filled with smoke from the compressor crankcase oil. No telling how long it had been running, and why it wasn't shutting down...
Below: Only partially lost - hoping I was on the correct road to get to that guy's house...
Below: Wrapping up after plowing his driveway. The snow was pretty deep, and he would have been stuck before getting to the road - that's for certain.
Since the guy lives pretty close to church, I figured I should re-plow that parking lot. Sure enough there was another 6 inches of snow that needed to be removed in the 30 hours since I'd last plowed it. I've got the left side almost done here.
On the way home I decided to treat myself to a chili-cheese-jalapeno omelette, with hash browns and a pancake. Painful, but delicious!
One member of the family has been enjoying the snow. She pounced to that place, all four paws in the air.
A bit like this dog, but a bigger jump:
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