Groundhog day! Yes we depend on a rodent to predict our winter/spring weather and sometimes I have to give him credit as his predictions are correct, but not always.
I certainly hope he is correct this year since we received the worst winter storm in over a decade for snowfall amounts and bone chilling weather. In fact, records have been broken for the cold as well as snowfall amounts.
At my house, we received about a foot but with the strong winds, it drifted so have high and low places all over the property. With daughter living here and having the grandson come stay in case there would have been a power outage, they parked their cars in the open area of the yard away from the trees in case of falling branches. So needless to say, we were rather blocked in.
Today my daughter shoveled a path from her car to the gate, only to find that it was stuck. The ice we received before the snow had sealed it to the ground, so more back breaking work to break it free. But at least the gates are working now and she was able to get out to take the grandson home and get a few grocery items she needed. The grandson's car will remain in its little snow bank until this weekend when temps will be above freezing and hopefully he can get it out.
Schools and many businesses are shut down. We are not prepared in this part of the country for weather that we experienced so it will take a few days to get things moving again. The U.S. Mail may say they deliver in all kinds of weather, but it has been two days since they have delivered or been anywhere near my home. Living in a rural area away from town, the roads are impassable and therefore unsafe for the mail carrier. It is why the school buses do not run and it causes a problem for emergency vehicles as well.
The sun shone today here all day but with the cold temps that never got above 16 degrees, there wasn't any thawing and won't be until this weekend when temps make it above the freezing mark.
In the meantime, I'm spending the night staying up to make sure faucets still work and keeping heat going on the plumbing. This morning when I awoke, I discovered the cold water faucet in the kitchen didn't want to work but it finally came on, then discovered the drain wouldn't drain. I worked most of the day with a small heater and a hair dryer trying to "thaw" out the drain pipe only to realize later in the day that I think the problem is where the drain empties into a grease trap before it goes into the septic. The bathroom drains are working fine and right now all the faucets work and I'll be spending my time all night to make sure they do since it is going to be colder tonight than last night.
Hopefully when the thaw does come, I won't have any broken pipes but still will need to call a plumber to have it checked out and will see if I can remedy the situation so won't be facing this problem again. Better still, I hope I never have this problem again.
I am not a winter person. I was raised in Iowa where the winters were cold and snowy and I've had all the winter cold and snow that I want. I thought living in Oklahoma would be milder at least and not have to worry about it, but since I've been here, we've had 3 ice storms, two of which lasted a week and we've had extreme cold, nothing like what we are having now, but it has gotten cold and we've had snow. But it would usually disappear within a couple of days. Not this time. It may be a week before it all goes as it may warm up this weekend but will drop back down below freezing next week.
So I really do hope that little groundhog is right and we are going to have an early spring as I am done with winter.
But on another note, February 2 is my oldest grandson's birthday and this year he turned 20 years old. At least he was here with us so we got to give him wishes in person. We hope to get together on Saturday to really celebrate the day for him but still was nice seeing him today. He is back in his own little house in town now as he is unable to get to his work place, but he will be able to do some work from home which will be good.
My daughter isn't able to get to her work place either and will be hard on the paycheck when it comes out but if the roads are impassable, there is just no way she can get there.
So that is what was happening here on February 2. Do hope your Groundhog Day was a good one.
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