Category: weather.

castle frostbite. weather.

Whoopsie

That’s how the last week has been going for me. How was yours?

Kid #1 put the Jeepito in the ditch as he was leaving for work. Not really his fault—the conditions were pretty bad, and the road was treacherous even for an experienced driver. But it definitely kicked off a chain of work-disrupting events for me.

I had it yanked out by a tow truck, and at first I thought there was no damage done. Going up the hill back to the house, however, the 4×4 refused to kick in when the front wheels slipped, and I slid all the way back down the hill in reverse. Turns out the transfer case is busted, so now the 4×4 is strictly FWD until it gets fixed. That’s a major repair, and I still don’t have a quote on it from the transmission guy, so we’re down to one car at the moment. And the attendant calls, arrangements, dealing with two different garages, and tentatively looking for a new set of wheels ate up a lot of my writing time and peace of mind over the last week.

Oh, well. Life happens, and at least nobody got hurt. Everything else can be fixed.

UPDATE: Jeepito has a fried rear differential. It’s not a cheap fix but not as expensive as I had feared, so we’re getting it fixed, and the little offroad banana will soldier on for a few more years. (It has fewer than 70,000 miles on it, so there’s still life in it unless it blows something that exceeds the seven grand or so it’s still worth.)

new hampshah. weather.

I’m totally trademarking “color kablooie”

October brings the golden days of autumn, and the last two days have been Chamber of Commerce tourism ad weather. We’re a little late for peak leaf season this year, but the first frosts just hit a few days ago, and now the leaves are in full Color Kablooie mode.

This is my ideal weather–cool nights and crisp 60-degree days. Find me a place on the planet where it’s this weather and scenery all year round, and I’ll move there next week.

castle frostbite. horseless carriages. new hampshah. weather.

Life in Upper Cryogenica, winter storm edition

We just had another nor’easter up here in Cryogenica, and this one dumped the most snow we’ve gotten so far in a single storm this winter. Here’s a picture of the total snowfall level–the ground was bare before the start of the storm. For reference, the Renegade has 18-inch wheel rims :

(A month into owning it, I am still impressed with that little Jeep, by the way. It does even better in the snow than the Subarus, which is no small feat. Just after I took that picture, I climbed in and drove the Renegade out of that spot and down to the bottom of the driveway so the plow guys could clean up. No shoveling required.)

I’m hoping that was the last snow storm of the season, but up here you never know. We’ve had nor’easters as late as April and as early as November. And now you know why every other car in New England has AWD or 4WD drive.

I do enjoy the four very distinct season, however, even the snow. It does have its beauty. (Which is easier to appreciate when you have a plow guy on call and an automatic propane backup generator that powers the whole house for a week in a pinch.)

 

castle frostbite. new hampshah. weather.

Bitchwinter.

I know it’s kind of gauche to bitch about the winter in New England when one chose to move and live here voluntarily lo these many years ago, but this winter is bitchworthy without further qualification.

We have never had as much snow as we’ve had this year, not even close. It has never been this cold for so long without any thaw days in the mix. We have never had three major winter storms on three consecutive weekends. Even here in the country, we are running out of space to push the snow, and down in Boston it just piles up because they don’t have any room left. Among my local friends, there’s widespread extreme winter fatigue. Spring can’t come soon enough, even if that means mud and blackflies, but at this rate I’m afraid it’ll take until July for all the snow to melt.

This is what the front of our house looks like right now:



The dogs have cabin fever. The humans definitely have cabin fever. And I’ve paid the plow guy so much money this year that I wouldn’t be surprised to see him pushing snow with one of those new Bentley SUVs next winter.

There are locals who have lived here half a century who say that they’ve never seen anything like it before. When you have seasoned New Englanders crying “uncle”, it’s a complete Bitchwinter.

FREE: FIFTY THOUSAND CUBIC FEET OF SNOW. MUST PICK UP. 

castle frostbite. gadgetry. new hampshah. the munchkin wrangler gear whore labs. weather.

winter boots for the grand marnier.

We moved to Castle Frostbite in December of 2007. The Castle has a driveway that is dog-legged and at a 5-percent incline that increases to nine or ten percent at the very top of the driveway, in the least convenient spot possible.

I’ve been driving Grand Caravans since before we moved up here, and those are front wheel drive only. Every year when our driveway gets its permanent winter layer of snow and ice, I’ve had frequent issues with making the driveway run from bottom to top, even with new winter tires, and I’ve had to park at the bottom of the driveway a lot.

This year, I finally decided to spring for a set of these puppies:

IMG 0777

Those are Finnish Nokian-brand studded snow tires. As you can see, they have little tungsten carbide studs set into the treads, for bite on icy surfaces.

Those things are purest, darkest magic. My FWD minivan trucks up that icy incline now at least as well as Robin’s 4WD Jeep Cherokee. I don’t know why I didn’t try those out earlier…oh, wait, I do: they’re twice the price of regular snow tires. But man, are they ever worth the extra coin. Not only does the car have traction on ice like it’s asphalt in summer, but it stops much better on iffy surfaces as well. I haven’t spun a tire since I got the Nokians. TWO ENTHUSIASTIC THUMBS UP from the Munchkin Wrangler Gear Whore Labs.  AAAAA++++ WOULD SHELL OUT HALF A MORTGAGE PAYMENT AGAIN.

castle frostbite. new hampshah. weather.

rasputitsa.

Spring is great, because the snow melts and it stays above freezing at night again.

Spring is not so great because the snow melts and it stays above freezing at night again.

This right here is our road at the moment:

20140404_194926843_iOS 20140404_194950282_iOS

 

New Hampshire’s four seasons are Winter, Mud, Blackflies, and Preparing for Winter.

castle frostbite. new hampshah. weather.

well, hello there, spring, you saucy minx.

The snow is finally MELTING. I cannot overstate how great that is. I thought I was never going to be warm again.

I know it’s a little obnoxious when someone who voluntarily relocated to New England complains about New England winters, but this particular one was a cast-iron bitch. To illustrate: we usually buy six tons of pellets for heating fuel in the summer. The last few winters, we’ve burned four, maybe four and a half tons for the season, and we usually have a ton or more left over in the spring. This year, we burned through all six tons just past mid-March already (and used up half a 350-gallon propane tank besides), and I had to get another half ton last week to keep the stove running some more. From what the guys at the stove place told me, that’s by no means an uncommon occurrence this year.

These first fifty-degree sunny days have been pure magic. The chickens have been clamoring for outdoor recess, and the kids have wanted to play outside after getting off the school bus instead of racing each other to the Xbox. I have some hope that the ten-foot-tall snow pile next to the house may even melt before July.

castle frostbite. new hampshah. weather.

a snow-related math problem.

Marko’s garage roof is a flat surface of 75×25 feet.

If there is a uniform snow layer of 2.5 feet thickness on the roof, a cubic foot of lightly compacted snow weighs 15 pounds, and Marko just removed all that snow with nothing but muscle power and a goddamn snow shovel,

a.) How much snow deadweight in pounds did Marko just shovel off the roof?

b.) How many Tim Tams at 95 calories a piece does he need to eat now to replace the calories he just burned shoveling all that motherfucking snow?

c.) How goddamn sick of the snow is Marko at this point?

d.) How soon can Marko relocate the denizens of Castle Frostbite to a new domicile in the more temperate climate of, say, western NC?

Bonus question:

If Marko jumps off the roof into a snowdrift to save himself the climb down the ladder on shaky legs, his idiocy causes him to sink up to his chest into soft powdery snow, and he needs five minutes of exhausting struggling to free himself from his entirely self-inflicted predicament,

e.) How big of a drink is Marko pouring himself right now?

castle frostbite. weather.

my kingdom for a backup generator.

Spring has totally sprung, y’all.

Yesterday, the thermometer at Castle Frostbite recorded 88 degrees. Unfortunately, we lost power in the short but intense thunderstorm front that moved through the area in the evening, so it was also 88 degrees under the roof where the grown-ups sleep. We were in the middle of cooking dinner when the power went out, but the salmon cooked with the residual heat from the stove, so at least we didn’t ruin a $20 slab of good Alaska salmon.

Did you know that it’s kind of hard to fall asleep when it’s close to 90 degrees and you can’t run a fan or air conditioning because the electrons are leaking out of a broken line somewhere up the road? And did you further know that when the power comes back on at 2:30am, after you had finally fallen asleep, it’s even harder to go back to sleep?

So yeah, we’re dragging a bit today. I’m at the auxiliary office, a.k.a. the coffee shop, doing my writing for the day after dropping the kids off at Splash Camp. When I get home, I think I’ll check the acoustic integrity of the mattress for an hour or so. 

castle frostbite. new hampshah. weather.

castle frostbite is IFR.

Wee bit foggy out today, eh wot?

PEA. SOUP.

47 degrees after weeks of snow and biting cold will do that. I didn’t even see the school bus coming until it was about 30 yards away.