Spring at Last

Spring is busy springing here in Southern Ontario.  We’re actually getting a few days above freezing here and there, even if there is still snow on the ground about half the time.  And we’re actually starting to see more rain than snow, which is a great thing for rain lovers such as DH and me.  As for the animals, Kai, who absolutely LOVES to play in mud puddles, is thrilled, while Lance, who adores snow, is not so happy.  (I won’t mention how hard it is to keep our white-tile kitchen floor clean in this season, LOL!)  Dale and Audrey, being indoor cats, couldn’t care less either way.  :)

Another sign of spring:  Kai’s blowing his coat out, so we’re brushing out another whole dog’s worth of fur every evening.  And there’s STILL fur all over the house, and literally falling off of him in tufts!  It will pass, though.  Lance went through the same thing last year about this time, and now he’s got a beautiful, silky, adult coat.  Come June or so, Kai will also have lost the last of his wool-like puppy fur. 

And I really do like the combination of almost-warm days and still-chilly nights.

Groundhogs, Blizzards, and Spring

Welcome to the Groundhog Day Storm of 2011! 

February 2 is an interesting day for DH and I, even without a blizzard!  Imbolc is often celebrated on the 2nd, as is Groundhog Day and the stolen Candlemas.  My DH and I celebrate not only the day we met, but also the day, a year later, when we married on the 2nd.  This year, it also happens to be the eve' of Chinese New Year (Year of the Rabbit, or so I've heard).  And, just to add a little interest, today there is, of course, the storm.  Whew!

I'm pretty sure we all know about Groundhog Day.  But how many of you know it has Pagan origins?  I'm not kidding!  See for yourself--Google "groundhog" and "Pagan". 

Imbolc is also a Pagan holiday with roots in fertility, weather divination, and looking forward to Spring.  Those who know much more about etymology than I will tell you that the word itself comes from a Gaelic phrase for "in the womb".  This phrase refers to lambs, which are now or will shortly be waiting to be born, as we are waiting for Spring. The Earth herself lies in wait, preparing to burst forth with new life in a few weeks.

Most of you don't know that DH and I met on the internet, long before it was actually cool to have done so.  We met face-to-face when he drove from Dallas to Austin in an ice storm on February 2nd, and we were married a year to that date later on a rainy one.

I don't know a whole lot about Chinese New Year, so I'll move on to the storm.  A blizzard was forecast for last night and this morning, but I haven't checked if we actually made it.  I've seen snow falling harder since moving here, and I've seen higher winds, but the criteria for a blizzard are the durations of both.  The media is calling it the GroundHog Day Storm, and I admit it's a catchy title.  DH and I have never been in a blizzard before, and with our love of winter and of weather, we loved it!

Whatever you're celebrating today, I hope you've had and are having a great one!

I Like Ice In My Drinks, Not On My Driveway

I need help, Dear Readers.  Due to the stormy winter weather over the past few days, the pavement which makes up our longer-than-normal driveway and the "parking pad" in front of our garage is now for all intents and purposes an ice-skating rink.  The only thing giving it any traction at all is the thin dusting of snow on top of it.  And we have no idea what to do about it.

We don't like using salt or ice-melt due to environmental reasons, but even if we were willing to do so in this instance, we can't 'cause the puppies play on the parking pad and eat the snow around it.  (I don't know why, but they seem to prefer eating snow to drinking water.  Maybe they're hot.)  And our resident rabbits hop across pad and driveway constantly.  "Pet-safe" ice melt quite frankly doesn't work very well, and is prohibitively expensive for such a large area besides.  And I'm not sure how "safe" it would be in such large amounts.  On top of all this, the ice is too thin for our ice breaker tool to get any kind of bite, so we can't remove it manually, either.

Do any of you who grew up in real winters have any advice?  Native Canadians?  American Yankees?  Russians?  Swedes?  Mongolians?  Is there any way to get it off before the Spring thaw, or do we just need to give up and buy ourselves (and the dogs) ice skates?

This Texas girl and her South Carolina/Florida husband are stumped.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!!!

We got our first snowfall here in Southern Ontario today!  It's not much, and it's too warm for it to stick, but I'm still happy and cheerful about it. 

That first snowfall always puts me in a good mood--comes from growing up without it, I suppose.  I was eighteen before I saw my first real snow--12 inches that lasted all of a day and a half before it melted!  Before that, I'd seen an inch or so just twice in the South Texas town where I grew up, both times falling overnight and melting by noon the next day.  Over the next few years I lived in Austin, Texas, and I saw it again only a handful of times, none of it lasting for more than a day or two. And there was the one glorious time when I vacationed in New Mexico over the winter holidays--when we got to an area in the mountains with 2-3 feet of snow on the ground, I got out of the car and literally cried at the beauty of it.

We didn't get much snow in the Lower Mainland when we lived in BC, either, although the year it fell on Christmas' Eve was truly magickal.  Other than that, one year it snowed for almost two weeks straight--a heavy, wet snow that made it almost impossible to lift a full snow-shovel.  (Those more savvy than I informed me that it was too wet to be "proper" snow.)  But living there, we could drive to real snow--the Coast Mountains are just over an hour's drive away, and the "Ski Hills" are just outside of town.  They're called "hills" because they're so low--the lowest, Grouse Mountain, has an altitude of only 853 meters (2,800 feet.)  With places like the world class Whistler Ski Resort nearby (2182 m (7160') and 2240 m (7347'), respectively, that's LOW.)  Still, there's plenty of snow on those "hills"--it's where I first cross-country skied, where I learned about snow-tubes and toboggans, where the locals go for a quick afternoon's or evening's skiing.  It's not the same as looking out your window and seeing it fall, though.

Silicon Valley, California, was another place we didn't see a lot of snow.  None, to be exact.

And then we moved here, to Ontario.  I saw my first white Christmas here.  For 4-6 months out of the year I can look out my window on any given day and see snow on the ground, if not actually falling.  I can go out cross country skiing or snow shoeing any weekend I want to do so (and since I've been feeling better we might even be able to actually do it this year).  We even bought our own snowshoes about three years ago!

So the locals, who did grow up with it, tend to groan when it snows, but I cheer.  (Okay, if it's still snowing in May I may get a bit grumpy with it, but for a long, long while I love it.)

I don't even really mind shoveling it, that's how much I love it!

Good Things About High Temperatures

The list for truly hot weather is fairly short, and I had to struggle to come up with even these, LOL! I tried to limit the list to those things that only really happen, at least outside, when temperatures soar.

Swimming
Hot peppers, watermelons, and cotton
Shorts, tank tops, and sandals
Thunderstorms

 Most of the rest I came up with can also be performed in mild weather (18-25 C or about 65-80 F), with which I don't have a problem.  And yes, I  do realize that your interpretation of hot and mild weather will depend on your own acclimatization--these are mine.  :)

As I write this, btw, it is 18C (65F) and raining here in Southern Ontario--truly lovely weather! 

Still Need Balance

Well, despite all my attempts to at least LIKE the heat, I was excited and happy this morning when it was actually chilly for the 1st time.  My spirit just soared.  Sigh.

I guess it's just how I'm built--try as I might, I can't help looking forward to fall and winter.  Maybe if we end up with a pool or pond where I can swim in the next house it will help me enjoy hot weather more.  The long, long winters here in Ontario (and my container garden) have at least taught me to enjoy spring, and that's a start!

Tomorrow I'll try and create a list of everything good about hot weather.  Any suggestions?

On Fire

I've been wanting to get more witchy in my blogging, and now I easily can.  I found Pagan Blog Prompts a couple of weeks ago, and this is the first time I've gotten brave enough to use it.  The current prompt is: 

"Extreme Temperatures

For a lot of Pagans, worship and rituals take place outside when at all possible. What about when the weather is just too hot or too cold to do anything outside? How do you connect with nature when you can't be out in it?"

I have always, always, ALWAYS hated the heat.  Growing up in South Texas will do that to you.  (I used to hate sunny days, too, and for the same reason, but four years in BC's Lower Mainland cured me of that.)  This hate/hate relationship with hot weather never used to bother me, but then I found my true Path.  Now I feel guilty about how I see heat.  After all, Wicca is a nature religion, right?  And it's all about balance, right?  Yeah.  And here I am, dreading the next six weeks or so.

But I do realize that guilt is a Christian concept.  I shouldn't feel guilty about it, I should learn from it.  And so I'm trying.  I'm trying to get out and do more "summery" things--sit out on our makeshift patio, crawl out of the air conditioning and take a walk in the "lovely" heat, grow things in the garden, etc.  I'm trying to relearn how to dress as efficiently for the heat as I used to when I was a kid growing up without air conditioning.  I'm trying to not think of THE SUMMERLANDS as an absolutely dreadful place.

What about cold, you ask?  Cold has never been a problem.  I've always LOVED the cold.  Even if you can't perform a ritual skyclad in it, you can always add enough layers to go out in it.  Again, it goes back to my roots in South Texas--where I only experienced any degree of cold at all a handful of days a year.  My birthday is in January, and I HATED celebrating it in shorts.  I love living here in Ontario, where we get a REAL winter, with snow and everything.

But heat.  Ah, heat.  I am getting better.  I don't hate it as much as I used to.

A Good Storm

I had the tv on in the background, but wasn't paying attention to it or to anything going on outside when all of a sudden the satellite feed went bonkers.  I thought my tv had fizzled up and died, it was going in and out so erratically.  It was during one of the out phases that I realized I could hear wind and rain outside, and it wasn't my tv but the signal.  Of course, my first thought was "I really hope Kai doesn't wake up and need to go outside right now."  But my second thought was "A GREAT opportunity for today's photo!"

I didn't think I had time to find a plastic bag to put over the camera, so I ran to the front door.  I managed to get a few decent shots hanging out of it, including the one I chose as my photo for the 365 Project (see below).  Not to mention it was cool just enjoying the heavy rain up close.  Of course, I did enjoy it a lot closer when I had to take the puppies out shortly after that--it was the wettest my Gore-Tex had been since I left BC!

Day 13 -- Bejeweled

Ready for Summer

We moved our 'office' down to the basement yesterday, or at least enough of it to work for the next few months. It's SO much cooler down there, and we think it will save us tons of money on AC costs. We've meant to do it for the last couple of years, and not gotten around to it, but this weekend we decided to just do it. We moved the printer, the external hard drive, my laptop, and a few supplies. As soon as Don gets a docking station from his office for his work laptop, we'll be moving the monitors and keyboard down, too. Of course, for the last few days the weather's been too cool around here to worry about air conditioning. . . :)

Not that I would ever, EVER complain about cool weather, mind you! I spent this afternoon sitting outside reading, needing a jacket, but reluctant to go get one because I was enjoying being cold so much!

Storm a'Coming!

Earlier this afternoon, The Weather Network issued a Severe Thunderstorm Watch for my area. Unfortunately, it looks like they've retracted it, but I'm still hopeful. The sky has turned wonderfully dark, the wind, although it's still warm, has picked up, the temperature has gone down (from 31C to 25C), and the air is noticeably more humid.

Can you tell I like storms again?

Storms

Today, I thought I'd post a snippet of my response to an extremely well-written article by a friend of mine.  (Which is here.)  I thought I'd just write about my original experience (To read more on it, go here.), but I don't think I'll be able to do it twice.  It was hard enough the first time, so I'll just re-post that. 


[snip]

I too, used to LOVE rain, and especially thunderstorms. Growing up in South Texas, I rarely saw either, so they were both special and appreciated when they did happen. In May of 1997 Central Texas experienced a REALLY bad tornado "season". We were living just north of Austin at the time, and one of those storms came through the area where we lived while I was home alone. (I later learned it was an F3 from a storm that spawned over 20 tornadoes.) It actually went between our house and the next, knocking over the fence and doing some roof damage., but didn't quite touch down, luckily. I spent the rest of that stormy night in fear of the next siren.

To my extreme distress, the next time a storm blew up (about a week later) I was just as freaked out as I was that night. The fear during storms lessened over the next couple of years, but only slowly. When we moved to the West Coast, instead of missing the violent storms I had once so loved, I was actually relieved that they rarely if ever occurred out there.

Eventually I thought I was over it, but then we moved back eastward (late 2004). Our first summer here in Ontario, I basically went through it all over again. As if it had just happened. I thought I'd be scared of thunderstorms for the rest of my life at that point. Luckily, I was wrong, and I did eventually get more or less over it.

At this point in my life, I can sit on the porch and enjoy a good thunder and lightning storm. I can smile and go back to sleep when I hear hard rain on the window pane. But if I'm out and about during stormy weather, I probably watch the skies more than most.

[snip]