weather in the garden # 138

HOLY MOLY!!! It's let up now, but it rained cats and dogs and every other kind of beasty for several hours. Yard is one soggy mess. Standing water everywhere. Very slippery earlier. Attendance at church was greatly diminished.

My DH wanted to go ice skating yesterday. No way for that for me until all is healed here. Rain is steady today. 42 degrees means we have a cute snow border where the snow plows left it. All the potted and planted little trees must be very happy.

Rain boots on, the lasagna beds hidden behind the trees are growing --with all the composted refuse left by veggie-eating kids, pizza boxes, leaves, and newspapers. Then bigger boxes and a rock on top. Rather crude, but likely to be effective once real dirt and the town's compost get added in spring. I'm thinking hardy kiwi and another section for intermediate-sized conifers and native shrubs.

Thinking hard also about when the weather will be best to get the oaks professionally trimmed. Probably February, I guess, when DH will realize our stock of firewood is dwindling. With any left over time they can thin some of the neighbor trees that overhang.

I think Feb. & March are good pruning months.....still pretty dormant here, although sometimes March is warm.....The ice didn't melt until about 4 yesterday, then everything iced back up during the night.....just starting to melt off the drive now at 10 am!

44° bright sun All our snow is gone, although it was a heavy dusting sticking to the ground. We are down about 12" from the average snow & certainly no where near last year's 29".

We are way down also, & I'm very happy....saving money when the plow doesn't visit! Cloudy today, high around 30.....going out to lunch, & shopping for a new sofa.

31° bright sun What type? Can it be made into a bed or will it have arms in the way? Our main sofa belonged to my grandmother has to be recovered.

I find the easiest surface to keep clean with a dog is leather......didn't see what I wanted yesterday, will continue my search next week.....Sunny & 30 here today.....

Yay for leather!!

Probably snow later.

Sun is peeking through right now....temp will be 35 or so....just lovely for January!

Another nice January day....sunny & 35.....love this kind of winter weather......great walking temps......not so nice forecast for tomorrow.....

sunny 25°

6" or so of snow - big one on the way:)

Gasp! Hate to hear that, am hoping it veers to the south & east of us!

I have not seen the weather report today. Here at the moment it is 35° & bright sun.

Hunker down!!!

lightly snowing here. we may get a little more than predicted

Wow.

Hurricane winds for Nantucket; 20-30" snow predicted for New York City.

More for everyone else, including most of CT, RI, and MA.

Wow. Charge your batteries, and warm up the soup.

VibV. I'll start a pot of Portuguese kale soup tomorrow and fill the tubs with water and check the lines on the boat. But mostly I want to make sure I have my garden catalogs at hand to work on Spring orders during the blow. Patti

can not wait!! love these big storms.

Do you build rock shelters for your JPs?

Me too, wha, as long as we have power and heat. So I'm glad to be in the city for this one, snug and warm, even though it will be a sloppy mess outside afterwards.

Stay safe, everyone!

grocery shopping tomorrow as usual. I will get a few extra things but we have a person to plow our driveway & wood for the fireplace if needed. More warning than the blizzard of '78. ☺

Hoping you all are safe and warm as this storm moves through.

Here we have icy roads and wind but no accumulation and cold temps (for us) thru the week

Same here. It was a bust. We didn't get any accumulation.

I think it's a delayed storm, for which I was grateful when work wanted me traveling at 8 pm last night. It's snowing pretty hard now though only perhaps a foot of snow overnight. Fingers crossed for all because of the predicted power outages. Hope that is minimal.

Rosemary, glad you got home safely and can now hunker down.

Early morning news coverage briefly mentioned that power to some coastal communities was intentionally shut off as a precaution because fire and rescue crews might be unable to reach the area should a fire occur. Hum... 75 mph winds, white out conditions and storm surge ...

Still snowing heavily here, but it's beginning to clear in eastern NY state......Litchfield County didn't get as much as predicted....looks like about 8"......that's enough for me! Hope all of you in eastern areas are safe.

Thanks, Coleup. I do feel supported at work by the immediate supervisors. The what-ifs are what bothers me. Two years ago I was stuck on Mass Pike during white out conditions. You just don't want that to happen.

We got a closer look at the snow because our furnace vent was blocked so DH had to put a tent over it to deflect drifting. There's a good amount of drifting but the average snowfall is probably closer to two feet. Snowing and drifting are predicted to continue. The storm is predicted to move closer to coastal areas too.

16° I can only estimate the amount of snow, I think around 18-20". It is very light without a great deal of water content of the type bringing down power lines. State travel ban is in effect. We had a conference of cardinals under the tube feeder this morning & one is flexible enough to get on it. Strong winds with gusts up to 40 mph here so with the drifts it is difficult to estimate amounts. We are NE of Boston towards the coast.

How well I remember drifting and white out conditions from my childhood and young adult years in Illinois. Most people raised around here don't believe that you can't see your hand at the end of your outstretched arm and a drift is thought of as what the snow plow leaves in front of your driveway after you have cleared it.

The other thing I remember from early am reports on storm was a live scene from Boston where the only thing moving was a Boston Globe truck in the background. Some may remember that my job is newspaper home delivery. When a whole city or state is shut down to traffic, are newspaper deliveries considered an 'essential service'? Yeah, it's the what ifs that get me, too,

Hope your heater vent tent holds! Working window shutters seem like a good idea again.

Iris, glad to hear the snow is light and dry if abundant. Hope all our birds and animals are hunkered down safely, too. My stocking up at the store pre storm was for bird seed!

We did not get as much snow as was predicted .We were lucky as my neighbor did our side walk with his snow blower and we paid some kids a few dollars to clean the walkway ,steps and the path to the mailbox.Hubby cleaned off the 3 cars and the neighbor"s Senior parents car.

about 28" here now & it is still snowing, although the wind has dropped.

OK - national broadcasts this morning seem to give the nod to the I-290 corridor (Auburn to Hudson) with 36" of snow.

That seems to align pretty well with...Pepperell.

Wha..t say you?

Still snowing here. Looking at species roses from Corn Hill Nursery. A very nice selection. Now, if I can just find R. gallica versicolor........

Government offices in that corridor are closed today (My pals where I work near Hudson kindly texted me they thought I should take the day off), as are those east of Worcester. It's mainly because there's no place yet to put the snow. Today it's sunny and 18 degrees.

The rubber mat tent didn't work with our furnace input so we were pretty cold much of yesterday. Obviously ice got inside farther beyond what anything could reach and you can only turn the emergency power switch to the furnace so many times, so DH re-routed the intake to our basement. The output is what gets dangerous to people, and ours is up high, so its been safe here all along.

I'm putting rotten apples and such into an open box hoping the little critters will leave the tender trees alone. Their access to bark and branches is currently pretty high off the ground. Probably will just attract more, which is hard to believe possible. Keeping the birdfeeder full is an effort.

Will have to look up Corn Hill......don't know where I'd stick another rose unless some die off this winter.....ended up with 9" of snow......Nantucket looked very flooded ..hope Patti is OK....Bill as well in Pepperell.....spoke to my friend in Foxboro......over 2' there.....

up 2° to 15. Our driveway has been plowed & DH has been shoveling the walk to the car in short bursts. Birds are out of luck until he can work on a path to the feeder although the suet cake is still available to them. tough on the mourning doves depending on scattered seed from the tube feeder.

Any body live or know someone who lives down the cape (ie Falmouth)? and know if the power's still out?

here's a photo yesterday mid morning when the blizzard was still giving lower visibility....a herd of deer went thru our backyard, no doubt looking for food...poor things!

Whew!! Stay safe and warm.

It was a bust here, with NO snow. Many schools had a snow day needlessly.