Ice Storm

I guess I need to give instructions on how to post comments. I'm a bit surprised how many people don't know. First I'll explain how I have my blog set up. If you follow my link or if you just go to my blog you'll see my most recent seven entries displayed. If you click on the title of the post then it will show only that particular entry and at the bottom you'll see a link for the previous or following post. If you are looking at a single entry then you will also see any comments that have been made. You will also see the words "post a comment". Just click on those words and it will take you to a window where you can write a comment. If you are looking at the most recent seven entries then you won't see the comments but you will see a link in tiny little letters that says, "3 comments" or whatever number of comments there are. Click on that and it will take you to the same place. In the comment area you can read whatever comments have already been left and there is a place you can write your own comments. Just write your comments and then you have to copy the code into the space labeled "word verification". If I don't use that then I get all kinds of unwanted solicitations. Below the "word verification" there is a header that says, "choose an identity". You have four choices, each choice has a radio button and you need to select one of them. 1) google/blogger, use this if you have a gmail account or if you have your own blog on blogger; 2) open ID, use this choice if you have an account on another popular internet group like AIM or WordPress; 3) name/URL, use this if you want to simply write your name in but you don't want to sign up for anything (like a gmail account); 4) anonymous, use this if you don't want anyone to know who you are. Personally, I'd really like it if you used your name but if you want to stay anonymous that is better than nothing.Once you've typed in the code and selected one of the four radio buttons just hit the button that says, "publish your comment" and you're done. Easy eh? Now you have no excuses, leave me lots of comments.

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Living in San Diego there are many things that I miss about living in Canada but there is one thing that I definitely do not miss. Snow!!! Actually, if I were to be more precise it is cold that I don't miss. If snow were warm then I'm sure I would enjoy snow perfectly fine. There is nothing good about cold. It is very wrong but here in San Diego I have a nice two car attached garage, in Rosemary I didn't have a garage. What do I need a garage here for? I needed it in Rosemary. Actually, the purpose of a garage in San Diego is to replace the basements that they don't have. It is where people keep all their junk. A few people park cars in their garage but most just store junk. Let me share with you my typical routine on a cold winter morning in Rosemary. First I wake up and eat breakfast, next I wipe the frost off the window and try to see what it is like outside, I really don't want to shovel the snow. I then take the next ten minutes and put on my down jacket, my toque, my gloves, my thick wool socks, my Sorel boots with the thick liners and head outside. If there's snow I shovel the my walk and our neighbor Retta Crapo's walk. I also make sure there wasn't too much snow behind my car. I then get out the window scraper and chisel the snow and ice off the windows. Because it was bitterly cold I usually just make a hole big enough to see through and let the defroster take over once I get on the road. I then open the door which is often a difficult feat because it is frozen shut. Once the door is open I sit in the car but the seat is so cold that the foam rubber in the seats feels like a block of rock hard ice. I then turn the ignition and hear the motor slowly turn over once and die. Trying not to use foul language I go out and check the plug on the block heater and find that it has some how come loose and isn't making a good connection. This has allowed the engine block to get too cold and the motor oil probably looks something like molasses. I also have a battery blanket on that keeps the battery warm but without the power the battery has something like 5% of it's original energy. All of the ice and filth from the road messes up the plugs pretty bad so a bad connection is not too unusual. I wiggle the plug around until I can hear the block heater bubbling and then I go back in the house for another half hour. My glasses immediately fog over and because I'm so bundled up I soon get way too hot and I have to remove all of my outer clothing. A half hour later I repeat the whole process but this time, after some pretty scary noises the engine fires to life and I let the car warm up. After a few minutes I unplug the block heater. You don't want to forget that step or you will be replacing the plug which may not be a bad thing because it will fix that loose connection. I then get back in the car and put the car in reverse. The engine bogs down and you feel the car try to move backwards but it doesn't go anywhere. I rev the engine up a little higher but it still won't move. I now realize that because there was a Chinook yesterday the snow has melted a little bit and I had parked in a water puddle. The water puddle was now a solid block of ice that holds my car fast to the ground. After rocking the car back and forth I finally get it to break loose from the grip of the ice and I back out of the drive way and start for work. As I slowly (you don't do anything quickly when it is that cold) drive down the street the car is going clunk, clunk clunk because the tires are not round. It is so cold that they are retaining the flat spot from where the tire was on the ground. As the tires slowly regain their natural round shape my breath is condensing on the cold window making it difficult for me to see through the small opening I have chiseled through the ice. I desperately check the defroster in the vain hope that there might be a higher heat setting but in the end I use the scrapper to keep my small opening clear until the engine finally warms up enough that the defroster can keep ahead of my breathing. After a few miles I am elated to see that my small view port is gradually growing bigger. I get real joy out of watching this hole grow over the next five miles until my entire window (except for the very edges) is clear. It always seems like a miracle. I also enjoy watching the view in the back window where the fine wires embedded in the glass cause horizontal lines to form in the frost on the rear window. At this point I can actually feel warmth come from the heater and just about the time I get to work the interior of the car is actually comfortable. I now try and decide if I want to park by an outlet so I can plug my car in or will the mass of the engine block keep the heat through my eight hour day (pray that I can leave on time). I finally can't bear the thought of pulling out the extension cord and fiddling with the plug when it is so cold so I take a chance and I don't plug the car in.

I remember one morning when I woke up we had no power. This wasn't too unusual for Rosemary so I didn't give it much thought. I had a breakfast of cold cereal and went through a process similar to the one I just described and headed over to Georges house. It was his turn to drive that week. In spite of it being below the freezing point this was a very beautiful day. We had experienced an ice storm during the night and there was ice everywhere. It had rained sleet (a freezing rain) and there were huge ice cycles on everything. The trees were covered with ice cycles, the road was covered with ice (glad George was driving) and the power lines were covered with an inch of ice and long dangling ice cycles. Even the cars had a thick layer of ice on them. It was beautiful but treacherous. We get out on the highway and we were carefully progressing to Bassano when all of the sudden we notice that there is a power line dangling across the highway about a foot above the pavement. With the ice it was impossible to stop in time so we just hit the power line and slowly came to a stop. We didn't see any sparks flying so we were quite confident that the power line was dead but we were still very nervous getting out of the truck. We confirmed that there was no damage so we got back in and even more carefully continued on into work. Once in Bassano we learned that there was no power there either and without power we weren't going to be able to accomplish much so we headed home. Listening to the radio we learned that the major transmission lines were down and that most of the southeast corner of Alberta was with out power and some rural areas probably would be for several days. We then covered the food in our freezer with blankets to help them stay frozen longer and went to visit mom and dad in Edmonton. It was a week before all of the power was restored. That was some ice storm.

I often wonder why it took me 35 years before I figured out that there are warmer places to live than Alberta.