My daffodils are blooming and the lilacs are budding, but it’s the weeds that are really thriving. After all the years of flooding we’ve had, my yard is filled with weeds. I used to have such a nice lawn, nice gardens. There’s no way I can manage all these weeds. So if you can’t beat them, join them, right? Weeds can be very decorative…. well, kinda. I think there’s no redeeming burdock, except that the roots are edible.

Anyway, the heat was climbing into the 80s so I unpacked my summer clothes and wore shorts for a time. I even unpacked the box fan to run in the window! But then, all of a sudden– WHAM. Winter is making a comeback! It’s freezing today, with the thermometer barely getting above freezing. And looks like a bit of snow is on the way, too. No worries, though. Even though I unpacked my shorts, I didn’t pack up my warm winter clothes. This IS the Northeast, after all.

So the weather gurus are in their glory. They don’t usually get this excited about weather except when there’s a huge lake effect snowstorm on the way. And as if we just CAN’T get enough of the weather, they bring up the “drought” index.

Seriously?! Drought in New York State?! It appears that the word “drought” has different meanings across the country. I always through a drought was a long time (years) with very little or no rainfall– you know, The Dust Bowl and Grapes of Wrath and all. But here in NYS, “drought” means more like “a few weeks without our usual deluges of rain.” So we haven’t had our usual 5 inches of rain this month— who’s worried about a drought?

Yes, yes, I know local farmers rely on rain. But if there’s one thing New York State does not lack, it’s rainfall. How I wish we could import it, we’d be rich! I remember a few years ago we had a very dry summer with very little rainfall (for about 2 whopping months). Our garden and lawn thrived, though. We’d redirected our sump pump pipes to the gardens, and poked holes in the pipes. Drought or not, that sump pump runs ALL THE TIME. So we had plenty of water and the plants grew enormously. I’m never worried about drought. I welcome it, actually. But that’s just my own little world so I still hope for rain for the farmers’ sakes.

How is your weather in your area? Is it another crazy year of unpredictable events and weird patterns?

Yeah, we got more rain, more flooding. We only just swept Hurricane Irene out of our homes and basements and roads. Tropical Storm Lee decided to take the highway straight up from the south. Look at that line. Crazy! In case you didn’t know, I’m smack dab in the center of Upstate NY, right where that yellow-glob is.

That is a satellite photo taken at around 10pm last night.

I’m not sure how much rain we’ve had. It’s been raining straight– fishhooks and hammer handles– since early Wednesday morning. The weathermen said yesterday that we’d probably see upwards of 4 inches. But when I checked a rain barrel last night, when we were only halfway through the storm, it was 4 inches.

This is the new satellite photo, taken at about 8am today. I can’t believe this thing, it’s a monster with more energy than a 2-year old. It just keeps churning and churning.

Sorry if I am a bit incoherent. We were up a good portion of the night. One of our 3 sump pumps gave up the ghost, and the husband had to run to Home Depot (who stayed open all night on account of the emergencies) and re-pipe a new pump. Unfortunately, it’s a smaller horsepower pump, so the water in the basement isn’t going down as quickly as we’d like. At least the yard flooding has slowed.According to the satellite, though, we’ve got another day of this, probably.

My neighbors just 15 miles north of me have it bad. Neighborhoods have been evacuated– emergency teams have had to call in hovercrafts and boats. Schools are closed on their second day of school today. And the fire sirens just keep sounding. It’s unreal.

In the county next to me, reports are “flooding” in of schools filled with water. Cobleskill college had a foot of water in the dorms, with muddy waterfalls flowing down the stairs. Another neighbor had 4 feet of water in his basement. And of course, some folks’ homes have been inundated.

I know these things happen all over the world, and Louisiana is suffering from massive flooding, too. But here in Central NY, the biggest weather events we get is snow. We don’t get constant streams of hurricanes and tornadoes and earthquakes (all of which we have had in the past 3 weeks). Our infrastructure isn’t prepared for it. We’ve had five “100-year floods” in 5 years. That’s just….. nutty. Yeah, I’m frustrated. What’s worse is that states like Texas need all this rain much more than we do. I wish I could send it over, I really do. Oh well. It’s the weather. Thank God we’re still doing OK even though the losses are bad. And I’ve seen God make lemonade out of lemons with stuff like this. I just need to keep reminding myself of that while I watch the waters rise.

I will be getting a canoe, though. Seriously.

When I was a girl, we suffered a lot of rain one year. That year was actually a record-breaker for Central NY, our year of the most rainfall in 12 months. I canoed in my front yard during that time. Boy, it was fun!

Well, I think we have surpassed that old record of rainfall. And I realized that my kids don’t know how to operate a canoe. They need to learn. No time like the present. LOL.

I seem to be talking about the weather a lot on this blog lately. Sorry. I wish I could talk about my latest renovation project or something. But yikes, we can’t seem to get a hammer in edgewise with all this rain. ALL YEAR LONG.

This week alone, Upstate New York has had a tornado, an earthquake and a hurricane. ONE WEEK. Insane!

The weather guys are forecasting upwards of 5 inches for my area. Please keep us in your prayers. Five inches means bad flash flooding. Irene needs to move out to sea.

We spent part of our afternoon in hurricane preparedness today. See that green area in central New York State? That’s me.

We pulled in the patio furniture (oh my word, we have a TON of chairs, did you know that?!, the tractor, the tables, the stuff that’s been hanging on the line for a few days (oopsie, hee hee), the trash barrels… and stuffed it all into the garage. We can barely squeeze through the narrow walkway in there, but we did it!!! Well, actually, the kids did all the work. They did an amazing job.

We have to get a third sump pump installed yet. We are going to get a battery backup kind in case the power goes out.

I’m not worried or anything. No need to stock up on water, canned food, dried beans, safe diet pills, and cat food or anything! And after the last major flood we had, we pretty much cleaned out the entire basement. So the only thing that would get wrecked if we have several feet of water down there is the water heater. It would NOT be fun if it got ruined, but at least that’s all there is. Some weather guys are saying we may get 4 to 6 inches of rain in 24 hours…. yikes. It’s already so soggy here (been that way for 10 years now) that we’d have flooding should that much rain hit us. I’m hoping we get less than 2 inches.

How about you? Are you on the hurricane map? You going to have a “hurricane party” or get outta there?

STILL.

IT’S SNOW!

:-p

Here I was, thinking I’d be able to shut off the heaters by now. Eek, we’re cranking ‘em up again. And here I was dreaming that I could finally ditch the mudroom clutter of boots and coats and break out the slick dereon brands. No go.

Haha! Oh well, at least it gives me another opportunity to make roast chicken. Mmmm nothing beats that on a cold, damp day.

P.S. Is it just me, or does the LOLCat site now add two billion links to the photo you link to? I had to remove some lest my post be filled with links. Sheesh!

Sheesh! And I saw robins today, for the first time this season!!! Man!

Come on, winter, end already! Nobody wants you around!

My daughter looked out our kitchen window one morning, and said, “We have fairy chimneys.” I peeked out the window and this is what I saw.

The snowscape is so lovely and serene, isn’t it?

The “fairy chimneys” of which my daughter referred are the Cappadocia Fairy Chimneys of Turkey. We saw them featured on one of Drive Thru History episodes (OMG we love that show!). The show is done by Dave Stotts, who educates history while entertaining your socks off. He is SO hilarious! He is also a little accident prone, too. The poor guy must have some powerful homeowners insurance quotes, I tell ya.

I found this terrific 5 minute video showing how Dave Stotts does it. This is so cool!

Well, this post wasn’t intended to be a promo for Drive Thru History, lol. But I am bonkers about the series. He’s SO COOL. I highly recommend the series. My kids love them all.

So we have snow. Man, after watching that video, my fascinating snow fairy chimneys seem pretty lame. Oh well. LOL

Here’s the “snowpow” coming through… ha!

The boys like to play King of the Hill, where the opposing forces duke it out on top of the mountain, to see which one is worthy of the honor of securing his address plaque to the mount….

We made some videos, too, but I’m too busy to edit them today. These kids are just hilarious! They must have inherited their wacky sense of humor from their father! I don’t dare publish my address sign on my blog– my neighbors might read this blog, and they think we are weird enough already! LOL

Sorry I haven’t posted here very much this week. I’ve been horrendously busy, doing a billion and one things for work like writing articles about everything under the sun, like honey locust trees, gas dryers, address plaques and etc, doing school with the kids, taking care of the husband who has been under the weather, and etc. But then again, YOU guys seem busy, too, with Christmas preparations and etc. I like the Christmas season, but I don’t like the busyness of it. It messes with the normal routine. I miss everyone’s regular blog posts and comments– it seems that everyone is away during this time.

Well, at least it gives me time to fool around with the kids in the snow, eh? Livvy took a jaunt out there, too. Hang in there, I’ll have photos!

Here is my very weedy garden. I’m so glad the snow is covering the ugliest weeds. I seriously neglected the garden this year. Next spring will be a doozy for us– we’ll have to yank out all those weeds that are so well-established and happy in my garden beds. Ugh :S

The grill casts a lonely figure in the snowscape. The only thing I don’t like about winter is the lack of color. Everything is gray. But other than that, I do like winter a lot. Notice the blue tarp covering the snowblower and the lawn tractor. *sigh* I TOTALLY forgot to bring them in before the snow hit. I thik they may be iced to the ground by now, sheesh. I wanted to get all these chores done while we still had good weather, in November. Oopsie! Too late! Now, I’ll have to pull out the great handwarmers and dig the machines out of the snowbanks.

This is my little juniper shrub. It’s a dwarf something or other. I can’t remember what it’s called. :S I like the way the snow clumps on the fringed branches, like wispy white petite clothing.

Here’s a raspy bed of Black-Eyed Susans. I didn’t have time to deadhead them before winter. It’s nice to know that perennials can serve as artistic visual “interest” for those of us too lazy or busy to attend to the gardens! LOL

Does it snow where you are?

I don’t even mind walking in it. My poor husband has to deliver mail in this stuff, though. The postal vehicles are marvelous inventions, but for some reason, they do not have any heater vents for the feet. His feet are almost frozen solid after driving around all day, and tromping through snow to deliver packages to doors. I’m going to invest in some kind of Toasti Toes footwarmers for him, and maybe some other warm winter gear from Northern Outfitters.

Please be kind to your mailman– shovel out your mailbox and your driveway if you are expecting mail and/or packages.

Rain rain rain.

I hate rain. Rain is my enemy. My property lies in a low spot, surrounded by asphalt parking lots. The water table is very high here… so when it rains, all that precipitation usually goes into my basement. I have suffered through some serious flooding here. The years 2004 through 2008 were terrible, where EVERY SINGLE TIME it rained, we got water measurable in feet in my basement. I just can’t handle the flooding. Things have improved since we rigged up a super-duper double sump-pump system with large pipes of PVC dumping water into the town basin.. and the kids and I built a French drain outside, which helped immensely. So PRAISE GOD we haven’t had such severe flooding in a while. But if the pumps are unplugged, the basement fills fast. And if we get torrential rains, like we’re getting now (2+ inches an hour, all day)…. I get nervous. Talk about how to remove dark circles under eyes– eep, you should see mine!

Everything is sopping wet. Everything rots. I am tired of all this rain! It’s December, for crying out loud! I want snow!

I do like snow. I enjoy the muffled stillness, the white nights, the cozy evenings cuddled in blankets, sipping hot tea and talking with the kids. Now that we have a better heating system, I expect the heating bills to lower, which will increase my ecstasy all the more.

But it’s raining. *sigh*