Tsk, Tsk, Tsk What A Mean Trick

What in the world is going on East Tennessee?!

C'mon stop!  Enough of this white stuff and cold temps, brrr!

A cruel trick, especially following a beautiful warm and sunny weekend, geesh -

I'm guessing this sudden cold will have an effect on some of the flora and fauna who were led to believe it was safe to start their spring appearance...

This is pic was taken a couple days earlier, from the driveway of our house, the pear trees starting to bloom.

A One! A Two! A Three, HEAVE!

This years winter is one of the coldest we've had around here in several years.

Harsh winters do a number on our roads here in New England and this time of year we're all dodging potholes galore! The salt that is put down to treat ice, the damage done by the snowplows when clearing snow, as well as the deep freezing as contribute.

We had a nice, 'warmer' day earlier this week, so took advantage and opened some windows in the house, the basement doors and my garage doors to bring some refresh air into the house.

When I opened the garage doors I noticed the below, which really shocks me!  The threshold where the driveway abuts to the garage floor, which has always been level and a seamless transition from one to the other, is now ~1.5' higher!

This is another example of the freezing conditions, causing 'frost heaves". With the ground being frozen solid, water is unable to seep\leach into the ground and instead sits, which then freezes and 'heaves'.  I've just never had this happen before, at least not to such a noticeable extent.

I'm hoping what once we thaw out, the driveway will settle back down and be fine. Even if it does, I'm worried about the potential effects it might ultimately have.

We'll see here soon enough.  Fingers crossed.

A Kousa Shadow

Brrr, it's cold!

Everything is still frozen solid and a sheet of ice!

I thought this was a cool picture of my Kousa Dogwood trees shadow cast on the undisturbed but windblown, frozen snow.

A New Twist On "Snow" Blower!

Just came back in from shoveling again now that the snow has stopped.

It's actually warmed up some and the sun is out, and there's a bit of melting taking place, so I wanted to clear as much as I can and let the ole Heat Meier get to work on some melting.

I had a brilliant idea, well brilliant in my mind, and fired up the old hand held "leaf" blower, now referred to as the old hand held "snow" blower!

It worked like a charm clearing the lighter, fluffier snow!  No shovel was needed or used on the walkways and back deck, all the snow was blown away, see below!

I'm quite certain the neighbors and passing cars think I have a screw loose but my back thanks me.

A White Christmas Maybe?!

It snowed yesterday, light snow in the afternoon that turned to rain, then back to snow and picked up heading into the evening. Guessing we got about 4-5" here in Franklin.  Enough that the plows were out, as was I shoveling, proof below -

Last night it went into the single digits temperature wise, with the weekend day temps staying in the mid-20s, brrr!  We very well just might have a white Christmas this year!

I'm right in the 3-5" sweet spot -

Knowing the temps were going to drop, I wanted to get the driveway, walkways and deck cleared off as best I could last night before everything froze solid - mission accomplished.

Even though today Saturday, December 21 is the official start of Winter, I've had enough!  We've already had single digit cold temps, freezing rain, snow AND I've had to breakout the shovels and actually shovel snow.  All the boxes have been checked, I'm done!

First Snow of 2024

 Apparently, a full night of uninterrupted sleep is NOT a luxury for me these days.

Trixie had me up at 2:30 this morning needing to go our to do her 'business'.

Don't get me wrong, I am very thankful that she lets me know when she needs to go out, just wish it wasn't in the middle of the night or at the ass crack of dawn is all.

Much to my surprise, and Trixie's too, was the falling snow greeting us when I pulled back the curtains and opened the slider -

Click the image below to see a 30-sec clip of the first snow of 2024 -

As you can imagine, when Ms. Trixie finally made her way back inside she was covered in snow and all wet.  All her shaking did was spray the snow all over the kitchen, she was still wet and therefore NO longer welcome up on the bed!

I on the other hand crawled back in bed and under the toasty warmth of my eclectic blanket and back off to 'bubba-night-night'...

Wax On! Wax Off!

I completed another pre-winter chore today! A chore that honestly I loath, waxing my car.  Actually, I really dislike any sort of car detailing, inside and outside, just don't enjoy it.

However, that being said, the waxing of my car heading into winter is a requirement for me. I want to protect it as best I can from the ice, salt and the New England weather but also I find it helps to repel, to some degree, snow and makes it easier to clean off the snow too.

DONE and look at her shine!  The marks shown along the side, below, is just a reflection.  She looks good!

Let it snow!

** UPDATE**

It's Sunday morning and it's been raining off an on.  Just look how the water just beads off the new wax job, so nice -

Let The Games Begin!

Well, it's that time of the year when the cat and mouse games start.

Now that I've closed my pool and stored all outside items, e.g. flower pots, patio furniture, hoses, etc., the pool house (shed) is pretty full.  With the cold weather starting to arrive and the winter closing in, rodents begin foraging for a warmer place to stay.

As I've been doing for years now, mouse traps are deployed in the pool house to prevent these dirty vermin from squatting.  They're dirty, they poop all over the place and do damage to whatever they can chew and gnaw on to make their nests.

Their fondness of peanut butter is their kryptonite.  I set numerous snap traps in the pool house and monitor them weekly throughout the winter months.  I rebait and reset when needed and dispose of those who get snared.  Last year I caught over 20 during the winter months.  To date this year, which has been about a month, I've trapped 2.

This weekend I introduced the mouse traps older brother into the mix, the rat trap -

Hasta la vista baby!

Added Cold Weather Protection

Perhaps hard to tell from this picture but I installed a sheet of plastic over our bay window.  Much to the dismay of JoAnne and Oliver, this has become my heading-into-the-cold-weather tradition.  Believe it or not, it makes a BIG difference when it comes to heating the family room, BIG difference.

Telescoping I Was...

I used my new (new to me) snow roof rake yesterday.  It worked like a charm.  Of course easier to handle on the lower roofs and still easy on the large roof, although, more cumbersome due to it's length.  Easy to put together, take a part and store!  Solid, held up just fine.  I was so excited using it that I went across the street and used it on my neighbors roof.

A Frigid Swim

Another wintry picture from yesterdays snowstorm - our pool

Will Wonders Never Cease?!

Good thing I was prepared for this otherwise I'm fairly certain I would have had the BIG one!

Emilie actually shoveled our back deck today!  And all on her own too, without being asked or told.

Thank you Emilie!!

The Snow's A Glow

A pretty cool early morning picture.  So quiet and peaceful.

Let It Snow...

Our March 3 into 4 snow storm.

Looks like Franklin got about 10" or so of heavy wet snow last night.  Perfect for making snowmen and breaking ones back to shovel.  We're in March now and with the longer days I'm hopeful this new white stuff won't last too long.

Bundle Up!

Yeah, it was a tad nippy here the other morning, BRRRR!

Keep Warm!

 Brrrrr!

It's super cold this morning here at the ole homestead.

So cold in fact that there's no activity outside, from walkers or joggers to birds or squirrels.

Snow moving in tonight and into tomorrow.  It's gonna be a mess and one hell of a morning commute, UGH!

Only In New England

The crazy part isn't mowing your lawn in early December.  The crazy part is mowing your lawn in early December while wear shorts!

1st Snowfall of 2016

We had our first snowfall of the season this past Monday.

Well, more of a very light dusting and a good way to ease into Winter.

No doubt this amount of snow would have crippled Johnson City Tennessee (hehehe)!

Take That!

April Fools!

What a dirty trick Mother Nature played on us back on Monday April 4th, a snow storm, UGH!

I had just pulled the lawn furniture out of it's winter (garage) storage a couple days earlier.

With super cold temperatures to boot, BRRR!

A Complete 180

Spring is in the air!

Crocuses bursting and blooming away one day - 

Hey, what gives?!

Snow storm the next morning -