January | 2014 | Jwj Photo blog

Okay, I wanna have a talk with whoever it is that ordered the heavy snow we received late Saturday night and all day yesterday….and whoever it is that sent us the extremely cold temps and wind chills needs a good thumpin…figuring when I find that person, I`m gonna open up a big can of Arkansas asswhoopin…geez…I guess if any good at all can be found in this situation, it would be that we received dry snow…think Scott Connell at Channel Five called it fluffy snow…it doesnt weigh as much as wet snow thank God…and yes, I did thank Him last night that we only received the light fluffy dry snow and not the wet heavy snow. But seriously, we need to have a talk with the knothead that sent us the ” polar vortex ” as they call it, the only clue I have is that it seems to have originated in Russia…last night was bad enough, got down to ten below outside, my sunroom got down to 40 degrees even with the heater running all night…normally it stays about 50 out there…tonite its going to get even colder, so I brought my palms and hibiscus into the house to keep them warmer.

Yesterday, it was whiteout conditions during the mid morning hours of the huge snowstorm….

I went outside at 8:30 am to check my truck and let Missy out, and found my truck, under the carport cover, covered in snow…

…guessing the carport didnt work so well this time….got out about mid morning to get some food for Missy and some milk and cereal for me…gotta have my fruit loops and Tony The Tiger flakes, figured there wouldn`t be anything open later on, and I was right. It finally tapered off at 4 pm, we wound up with 11.2 inches of snow on top of an inch of ice from the rain and sleet we started off with Saturday night….here is the night shot Sunday night showing the street in front of my house and my neighbor`s car snowed in….

After the snow stopped, we had the ” polar vortex ” to look forward to…..arriving late last nght…as I said, we got down to ten below last night for our low temp, the wind chills though were even worse, 20 to 30 below zero. This morning, I woke up at 8 am again, found out the temp did actually get down to ten below and our wind chill out here was right at 20 below zero, but we did wake up to sunshine, whch was somewhat comforting…after some fruit loops, frosted flakes, and cocoa krispies, I bundled up and took Missy outside, started the truck…it did crank over but it was def a cold start…and let it warm up while I worked on shoveling my driveway out…working my way from the truck to the street and then tackling the drift at the street entrance that was about eighteen inches deep. I worked on it for 20 minutes and then took Missy back inside for a warm up. I had gotten most of it cleaned out in that short time, and after a brief break, finished it up in ten minutes…I let the truck continue to run and turned the heater on full blast. A few minutes later, I noticed three guys next door at my neighbor Carol`s house, shoveling out her driveway…thinking they were going to have fun cause there were a ton of old fall leaves in the curb gutter at the entrance to her driveway…one guy broke his shovel handle when they got to that point and then they were down to two guys working…one guy finished it as another one checked with my neighbor Kevin, on the other side of me…and got his okay to do his side of the driveway that joins up with mine at the street entrance…..

…by this time, I had warmed up again and bundled up once more and crossed the street to help my neighbors Diane and Glenn, with their driveway…Diane is a home health care nurse and had to get out no matter what to check on her clients, so I cleaned out the entrance to their driveway to make it easier on them getting in and out with their car, before driving around to see how things looked today. With the gym closed for the extreme cold temps, at least I got two good workouts in this way. Missy and I took off down my street soon after….