Remember that picture I posted a while back of my "freezer?" It's a good thing that I didn't have more than a couple bags of ice and some vegetables in there because for the last week it's been ABOVE ZERO to the tune of highs of 40 degrees. This is nice in some ways, horrible in others. Having to move everything from the outside freezer to the small, indoor freezer in my refrigerator is one. Driving on roads that are half ice, half water is another.
A few days ago the water/ice combo caused my 4WD truck to try to throw me off the road all the way home. It was ice where the left tire was riding, and water where the right tire was. The right tire kept grabbing while the left tire was still trying to get traction, causing the truck to try to fling itself off the road and into trees, telephone poles and people riding snow machines on the side of the road. It was very scary, especially when I had to drive up that steep hill that is on my way home. You have to get a run at it, there is no other way to reasonably get to the top. Oh, might I add that there are really stupid people who insist on driving 70 mph on ice in winter on a two-lane country road? So add those people into the mix, too. I had to keep pulling over because there was some maniac snorting down my tailpipe.
Do these stupid people not remember that you can expect a moose at any time? Especially when it's warm outside? Do they actually want to hit one at 70 mph on freakily icy roads in the dark?
Better them than me, I say. So I pull over and wait for the three cars behind me to continue up, each of them less than a car length behind one another. Idiots.
Every time I tried to go at any speed more than 40 mph the pull on the right side became alarming. So I ground up the hill in 4WD so I wouldn't slide backward and then crept down the north side an an increasing rate that started at 30 mph and ended up at 45. But by then I could take the 4WD off and the of the pulling stopped.
That gave the next herd of idiots a chance to catch up to me, but hey, I have to get home some time, so I managed to turn down my road before anyone smashed into me.
Besides dealing with cranially-impaired drivers, 40 degrees above zero causes everything to DRIP. When I pulled into my normal parking spot at work last week, I got out, walked around to get the dogs out the passenger side and luckily looked up at the building. There was a glacier-like hunk of ice and snow that must have weighed several hundred pounds sticking four feet out from the edge of the roof, and it was going to slam right into me, my dogs, my passenger side door... After moving my truck to the parking lot, I went in and we made a sign to warn folks, and then the guys who work there had fun yanking down as much of the glacier as they could reach with their snow roof tool thing....it's kind of like a rake for a roof.
Let's see, it's nice not to wear gloves and a hat, though you still have to carry them at all times because it gets back down to 20 and even 10 later in the day and evening. It's way slick for walking, as well as driving, so everyone walks around parking lots with this ridiculous teeny weeny toddler steps. I'd love to have a bird's-eye view of the Fred Meyer parking lot at say, 6pm. We look like a bunch of penguins shopping.
Not exactly fun, but useful for later....I can dig out the frozen dog poops in the yard and dispose of them. That's good because there will be much less of a mess when then finally thaw out in the Spring, at which time they suddenly become gooshy and REALLY STINKY.
Even less fun, I can now move and clean out a plastic dog kennel without fear that it will break. When it is very cold, plastic stuff simply breaks. If it's warm enough I can actually move it and clean it out.
Okay, I'm not sounding like I like the warm weather but I DO like it when the dogs and I can play outside for longer periods, not limited having to go inside when get too cold.
Lots of people are doing quick outside construction projects, people are skiing and snow machining and even jogging and bicycling. Oh yeah, when I was driving up the hill with my misbehaving truck that night, there was a bicyclist just below the crest of the hill IN THE ROAD (is he suicidal???) and I had to go around him or slide backward down the hill....risking a head-on collision with whoever might be coming up the hill from the other side.
I guess I just needed to vent that exasperation. The temps are supposed to drop back down again in a few days. I, for one, will be rather relieved.
