February 4, 2009 – Coco the siberian tiger plays with an industrial strength bungee cord in her habitat at the Toronto Zoo in Toronto Ontario. Toronto Star/Pawel Dwulit – quotesgram.com
We moved to Arkansas over 30 years ago because the climate was mild. We really don’t like the cold.
Our forecast for today through the first day of January sucks.
We woke up to a temperature of 40. That’s good, but the forecast is that THIS was the high for the day and that the temperature will drop from there during the day and then will be below freezing the rest of the week. We’re forecast to get rain/freezing rain/sleet/and/or snow this evening through tomorrow. Arkansas doesn’t do winter well. We tend to get really bad ice storms that break our trees, kill our power, and make it impossible to get around in one piece.
We prepare for winter here on top of our ridge line seriously. We put on our snow tires in November and take them off mid March or April. We have public water plus well water plus extra bottles and containers of water ready. We have extra food in our pantry. We have a generator that will run everything except heating and cooling. It comes on automatically when it senses the power is off and turns off automatically when it senses the power has returned. We have a wood burning fireplace. We have cold weather bags we put in the car if we’re going any distance. We carry a basic tool bag in the car. We have good hats, mittens, boots, coats, long underwear, etc. We have extra food for our dogs, cats, and fish. We have a winter checklist we go through to try to keep things from being damaged by the cold.
Some winters here are downright balmy. Last winter, for example, I was still growing and harvesting lettuce in one planter beside the house through January. Some winters are brutal. We got serious about preparing for winter after having a really bad ice storm in 2000, where we were trapped up here without public water, public power, or being able to get down our driveway for the ice and fallen trees for 14 days.
I’m hoping that the weather people have been bored lately and are hyping the possibility of bad weather. Sometimes I suspect that the weather people must get kickbacks or perks of some king for forecasting bad weather causing everyone to rush to the store for milk, bread, eggs, batteries, etc.
I promise not to gripe if we just have some cold weather. I won’t gripe, either, if we get a dusting of snow, or a bit of sleet. I won’t gripe if the north wind takes my breath away when I’m out trying to play with our lab puppy. I promise!
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