Ready for Winter

Brooder house now garden shed

It looks like we got the plant pots and the lawn furniture put away just in time, because last night the rain turned to snow and this morning the ground was covered. It's been blowing hard all day and looks like mid winter out there, with half a foot of snow if not more.

I guess it's time; winter has really arrived.


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There is a good possibility that an opening is coming up in one of the other group homes in town very soon, and Emil will be able to move there. With luck that will solve the problem. Unfortunately it still leaves the other residents in his present lodging in an unpleasant situation. I hope someone is advocating for them, too.

He was pleased with the close trim of his beard yesterday and commented that he looked younger and handsomer. I had to agree, because his whiskers were getting pretty bushy.

Tomorrow is the Remembrance Day holiday and he gets the day off, and is determined that I go in and see him, maybe bring him out here. Who knows what state the roads will be in? I may well be going nowhere if this weather keeps up.

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Judging by the snow, there's no point in hoping for an Indian Summer. I thought we'd already had it. But according to this article, it would only be later:

In the fall, it seems that almost any warm day is referred to by most people as "Indian summer."

And, while their error is certainly not of the world-shaking variety, they are, for the most part, in error. Here is criteria for an Indian summer:

As well as being warm, the atmosphere during Indian summer is hazy or smoky, there is no wind, the barometer is standing high, and the nights are clear and chilly.

A moving, cool, shallow polar air mass is converting into a deep, warm, stagnant anticyclone (high pressure) system, which has the effect of causing the haze and large swing in temperature between day and night.

The time of occurrence is important: The warm days must follow a spell of cold weather or a good hard frost.

The conditions described above must occur between St. Martin's Day (November 11) and November 20. For over 200 years, The Old Farmer's Almanac has adhered to the saying, "If All Saints' (November 1) brings out winter, St. Martin's brings out Indian summer."

Why is Indian summer called Indian summer? There are many theories. Some say it comes from the early Algonquian Native Americans, who believed that the condition was caused by a warm wind sent from the court of their southwestern god, Cautantowwit.

The most probable origin of the term, in our view, goes back to the very early settlers in New England. Each year they would welcome the arrival of a cold wintry weather in late October when they could leave their stockades unarmed. But then came a time when it would suddenly turn warm again, and the Native Americans would decide to have one more go at the settlers. "Indian summer," the settlers called it.

Source: The 1985 Old Farmer's Almanac, with my thanks to Lilye


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We watched the movie Kick-Ass last night and in spite of the graphic violence, I liked it because the superhero in it was a little girl who seriously kicked ass. Damn, she was good. And I never mind seeing the bad guys get what they've got coming.