Wonderful Weather (2/17/2021):
By Tuesday (2/16/2021) morning we had accumulated about five inches of snow since Friday. During the previous night, our outside air temperature (OAT) equaled the -17F OAT that I recall having experienced in Kansas in about 1960. The Current Results: Weather and Science Facts website tells me that, as recently as February 10, 2011, we reached -17F, again. How soon I forgot. The website tells me,
"These records were observed at Eisenhower National Airport and go back to 1954. The lowest temperature measured during that time was -21 degrees Fahrenheit (-29 Celsius) on February 6, 1982."
Min °F | Date | Min °C |
---|---|---|
2 | March 05, 2019 | -17 |
-2 | January 01, 2018 | -19 |
4 | December 31, 2017 + | -16 |
-10 | December 18, 2016 | -23 |
0 | January 07, 2015 | -18 |
-5 | January 06, 2014 | -21 |
3 | February 23, 2013 | -16 |
7 | December 29, 2012 | -14 |
-17 | February 10, 2011 | -27 |
0 | January 09, 2010 | -18 |
Not living in this area during 1981-1989, I missed out on the -21F OAT in 1982. I was living on the Gulf Coast of Florida's panhandle at that time.
Finally this afternoon, I got around to tackling the snow on our driveway. I do, after all, need to drive to the grocery store tomorrow. (Kudos to WalMart for automatically having rescheduled my pickup from Tuesday to Thursday when their online scheduling system was overwhelmed such that we customers could not reschedule for ourselves. One assumes that everyone with a scheduled Tuesday pickup was pushed back to days expected to be exhibiting better weather/street conditions.)
I never spent more than 11 minutes at a time and only went out thrice. My muscles are not accustomed to that sort of exercise, now, and I hate it when I cripple myself because I'm too stupid to pace myself. I'll do even more shoveling tomorrow morning - after it warms up a bit, but before my appointment at WalMart's little store.
The first photo (below) shows the results of my first two ventures out. That bare concrete is where my car will be required to back and turn to the street (to the right).
Next, I cleared some of the concrete in front of the garage doors that hide Hunky Husband's and my cars.
Emergency Supplies (2/17/2021):
Yesterday afternoon, a tiny package was delivered by FEDEX; but, today, FEDEX brought me a really important, heavy box: 14 pounds of safflower seed and 10 pounds of shelled peanuts for our birds. Yay!
Old Photographs (2/18/2021):
One of the photos that I scanned, today, was of my mother's basketball team. She attended country schools during her grades 1 through 10, then had to transfer to a larger school in a town down the road a piece. Whether she also played basketball in 11th or 12th grade, I'm not sure; but, I also scanned photos of the elder of Mom's two younger sisters with her basketball team from the larger school.
In the photo, below, my mother is holding the ball because they lined up by height and she was the shortest. I remember a few of these players, and the coach, from years later when I lived in that area. In fact, my first year or two were spent in a house whose yard abutted the schoolyard. I suspect that the "uniform" bottoms were bloomers - with elastic at the leg opening which is pushed up on the thigh. At least, our gym uniforms in the 1950s had elasticized legs that pushed up - a bit shorter than the ones shown.
ADDITION of 2/24/2021:
Joared gave me a thought. In seeking a photo that showed the gym clothes that my own generation of girls wore in high school, I had searched my yearbooks from 1954 and 1955. Aha! I have a yearbook from 1956 (with which class I should have been graduated had I not skipped 11th grade). The following image is a scan of a page from the 1956 yearbook which illustrates, nicely, the outfits that we wore in the mid 1950s. Since I attended school with these girls for several years, I know knew nearly all of the girls in the two photos. The girls who were seniors when the photos were taken, and who have survived, will be celebrating their 65th year reunion, this year.
Turkeys Making Tracks (2/19/2021):
Each day, early of a morning, our neighborhood's turkey flock left more tracks through the snow. We could follow the flock's movements after-the-fact, up and down and across our street; but, the most interesting patterns were left in our back yard.
Finally, a "clear" sidewalk (2/19/2021):
Now that we've finally reached an OAT that is above freezing, I deigned to clear the snow from our front walk. A man walking down the street to retrieve his mail from the mailbox cluster asked, "Would you like for me to do that for you?" I thanked him and explained that it was good exercise for me. Really, it's more fun than work since I limit what I do at one time - this stint's being limited to 14 minutes. (Working my way up.)
It is a waste of time to clear the sidewalk: no one uses it. I can't blame them. It is so much shorter to cut across the yard from the street to the front steps.
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