Philotic Web

The LA weather has been strange... it keeps oscillating between rainy and scorching.

Today was perfect though.
Mild and overcast morning, not humid (typical spring/summer morning)
Warm ~73 degrees and breezy most of the day.

It's not quite warm enough to head to the beach, but I'm loving the weather.

our weather has been kinda unpredictable as well (not that bay area weather is EVER predictable), but today was nice

I can't recall the last time it was still so cold I had to build a fire downstairs in the middle of April!

sunny san diego has turned out to be a big fat lie (at least for the weekend we came a visiting)

Ya know, I appreciate San Diego much, much more now that I'm not living three hours away from it and going there multiple times a year to visit family. But the thing I loved most about going was how on some nights it'd get so foggy, I would look out my grandma's front door, could barely see the tree in the front yard, and wouldn't be able to see up the hill that was across the street. But I also had 360 days a year of sun in AZ, so San Diego wasn't my destination for more sunlight.

well the ironic thing was that the bay area, (land of much fog) was finally sunny the day that we left and then we got here and it was like we had brought the SF fog with us.

Last week: Huge blizzard predicted. Most all schools throughout the state preemptively closed. We ended up with maybe 1 inch of snowfall.

This week: A little snow predicted. 15 inches fell in one day, with more coming in the next storm system that's hitting today into tomorrow. Schools stay open.

"Welcome to Colorado! Where the weather's made up and the seasons don't matter!"

That is so wild! I hear some ski resorts are still open there too!

I cant believe those horrible tornadoes and the damage they cause! Those vids of that miole wide one was far out! I saw a pic of some poor wiener dog shivering with his peeps home in ruins and no place to rest his little butt, Makes me sad. I wonder how folks keep insured where tornadoes frequent, I doubt it's cheap, hard to get too in some places I bet.

Just came inside, a bit scarry out there! a few minutes ago Maddie came to me with my least favorite problem " uh Dad we're out of water" Oh s*** not again! so Maddie Julie and I trudge out to the well house armed with flashlites ( did I say that we have quite the electrical storm goin on ) to guide my way down the ladder to the well control box. All the while I'm thinking through what could be wrong and coming up with the right plan to get our little world flushing again, and then all hell breaks open the sky opens up with a MONSTER lightning strike over us and the gals start screaming their heads off and I'm standing on this rickety old ladder in the damn dark! In the big flash of light that only lightning can pull off, this big old doe that has been hanging round walks right up to the girls and every time the lightning goes off the doe gets closer to Julie. anyhow I fixed the burnt off connector (gotta find why that keeps happening) re set the well controller and herded my screaming panic stricken girls and the deer back to the house. Ps. the old deer may be in trouble, when I was kicking around this morning near daylight this doe keeps following me around or at least keeping an eye on me. I've been watching her and I think she is fixing to duplicate and things are not happening right. I have delivered my share and then some of calves around here and I think she needs a vet. Stuff like this always happens to me!

Was just about ready to start harvesting winter wheat and test out the combines to work the bugs out of them (those nasty combine fairys that move in over winter) and then it starts raining! Can't remember when it last rained in Aug.

We had a drenching last night, we have just the chickpeas to harvest yet but many other farmers around here still have wheat and barley yet to go. There may be some serious rain damage soon. I hope not but I have seen wheat n barley sprout in the head and I don't think it's far from happening. Weather patterns are changing here a lot, we're going to have to plant on different dates and grow different varietys and maybe plant entirely different crops soon. It's funny how I laughed at the global warming threats for years and now when reading my farm journals it's obvious how much we have changed how and what we plant.

High of 72° and rainy? Hello, fall! How I've missed you! Warm apple cider is in my plans for the day!

oh, and I got soaked to the bone TWICE yesterday in downpours of rain and it was awesome!

Staff BBQ today and it is in the mid-90s with, thankfully, relatively low humidity. Blegh.

So, that rain I love so much? Yeah, my beloved Colorado is not in a state of declared emergency because of flooding. I woke up to am email that school is canceled. Most local streets are closed since they are swamped. Friends have 4 or more feet of water in their basements. Whole neighborhoods and towns are evacuated. We've received half our year's rainfall in the last 6 hours. Dams have broken, reservoirs are being to be released, sewer holes are fountains. 3 people have died. It. Is. Crazy.

Yikes! Hope you and all your loved ones stay safe and dry, steph!

Wow. What a crazy few days it's been. Looks like we may finally be over the worst. Pretty much everything along the front range is devastated. Clean up is going to take awhile. Repair is going to take longer. The roads that lead up the canyons to the mountain towns are gone and they are saying it may be months before they are repaired. The higher towns can drive over the divide and then down and around. The middle towns are completely isolated and had to be rescued by the national guard. School has been out the last two days and it won't be back in session until at least thursday.

This is my community:


This is the interstate:


This is a community just north of us:


This is my hometown:


This is my home canyon:

Wow. I mean, just...wow. I knew it was bad but it's so hard to understand, even with the images. Everything still okay for you and your family, Steph?

Wow is correct. Best of luck to you and your family Steph.

Thats crazy! take care Steph

Thanks, guys. We had another bad round of rain on Sunday which made it kind of scary to get home from church. Roads were literally closing in front of us and I feel very lucky we found a path home at all.

Now we are just trying to find ways to help. It's hard with 4 young kids. I can't go muck out basements. Kids aren't safe there! We did cook bacon on skewers and take them to volunteer workers. But that was like 18 slices and there were 250 volunteers around town. So I'm not making much of a dent, but we're trying!

It's been scary living through a real-life disaster situation. But I love seeing the communities coming together in a way you never see otherwise.

Drove to my first day of work in the snow. I'm not ready yet!

I always thought the global warming people we're just wackos , and still do for the most part! the weather at least here has really changed and is different every year.

I always thought the global warming people we're just wackos , and still do for the most part! the weather at least here has really changed and is different every year.

yes. sadly, "global warming" mostly means "global climate change" with an overall warming trend - but nobody could be expected to sense the warming trend on any micro-scale. Local weather is still overwhelmed by local effects.

I looked at the extended weather forecast in North Dakota in November. Here are the five stages I'm going through.

Shock

Remembering I Moved Here On Purpose:

Anger at Universe:

Anger at Everything:

Bitching to Other People Dealing with This:

Eventually I will move to the universal Norwegian coping method.

Well, I Suppose It Could Be Worse:

It is getting cold here. We were out the other night at 1AM and it was supposed to have felt like 3F outside; I believe it. I don't remember it getting/feeling this cold last winter until late December, right around or just after Christmas.

It's fun weather if you're inside all the time but having to go through it to get to the train or go grocery shopping or run (blegh) makes it less fun. Basically, for those of us who don't have our own transportation and spend a lot of time waiting on public transit or are in transit on foot. zero finally, finally admitted it's kind of bothersome to be that cold out (he tends to be outside more often now that we live together, I guess) and apologized, as if it's his fault, that I have to walk in it nearly daily. Maybe my wimpiness rubbed off on him, poor thing.

The wicked cold did seem to hit early and suddenly this year. I wasn't quite prepared for it.

Brrr! I hope everyone out here is keeping warm this is nasty!

We are getting our first real accumulation tonight. Not much but about 3-5". Probably enough to shovel. Should be nice and heavy with sleet mixed in too.

I wish we had a bit of snow crazy as that sounds , this bare ground is getting hit with this 6 below and wind. I fear it's burning down the winter wheat, last evening I went to pull back some straw and dig some winter carrots for the kids and the it was froze solid. The deer may have sampled a few and the deadly wind must have blown some of my straw off. Sad waste and just to show that however ready for winter ya are and plan for , crap always goes wrong in the cold I just came downstairs to a cold pellet stove. I just serviced it last night just to be shure all was safe and well and sometime in the night the top auger motor shorted and quit! On a Saturday to no big i'll get it goin but Im just sayin the more ya think your'e on top of it all the damn devil sneaks in an bites you right in the ass.

It's snowing back home. But this has been my (work) view for the past few days:

It amazes me how downright balmy today's 35 degrees felt after the past few days of it feeling like -13. I could have sworn it was shorts weather; I would have been wrong but...

It amazes me how downright balmy today's 35 degrees felt after the past few days of it feeling like -13. I could have sworn it was shorts weather; I would have been wrong but...

Well you better stay in Chicago now, sounds like you've already acquired the appropriate internal thermometer for it!

I couldn't fall asleep for a little bit last night (okay, okay, it turned out to be maybe 3 minutes despite being dead tired but still) over fear of having to walk to the train and then wait an indeterminate amount of time for it to show up in a wind chill temperature of -45.

Seriously, how do you even face that sort of cold? I could layer more but only to a point and I feel like goggles or something would be best to keep my eyes protected but the closest I have is sunglasses. I'm half tempted to text the boss and tell him I'm concerned for the safety of being out for 20-40 minutes in an unsheltered environment and would like to work from home.


At least for today, it's nice to just watch the snow fall during breaks from reading. This is exactly what I imagined all winter "storms" and snowfall to be; actually substantial, ya know? Not just a sprinkling of what looks like powdered sugar or maybe an inch of two of crunchy stuff. Almost two years here and I'm finally seeing the stuff of my imagination. It's kind of mind-blowing. And gorgeous.