Here's a "Talk About Anything" thread

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Whatever works will be used.

Yesterday in downtown Raleigh, they were using leaf blowers to blow snow off the sidewalks.

Usually our snow is very heavy and wet, but yesterday's snow was very light and could easily be blown away. The heavy wet stuff freezes overnight and turns into a sheet of ice, and that's why it only takes a half inch or so to clog our roads.

Bob
 
I lived in Montana and Alaska before I retired and moved to Alabama. One of the reasons I moved to the Deep South was to get away from the dang snow. I had plenty of getting snowbound at home or stuck on the road and of having to shovel or to pay someone to plow my driveway (a job for big 4WD tractors). Pictures like the one Kanook posted make me shudder!
 
Was in a blizzard years ago (1977).
Average snow depth once the storm passed was about 10'. Drifts to 30'.
Only way out of the house was a 2nd story window. We crawled out then went to other houses that were 1 story. One was completely buried. We had to use broomsticks and poke down through the snow to find the end of the house where the door was.
It was over 3 weeks before we found my Mom's car... in the driveway!!
 
If it comes two inches of snow or any frozen precipitation it puts this whole area in stop mode. The folks around here are not used to dealing with that type of weather and are not equipped or prepared for it.:letitsnow:
 
thunderdome said:
If it comes two inches of snow or any frozen precipitation it puts this whole area in stop mode. The folks around here are not used to dealing with that type of weather and are not equipped or prepared for it.:letitsnow:
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True! Where I lived (Kodiak) before I moved to AL, there is a huge Coast Guard base, I believe the largest in the nation. Every three years of service in Kodiak, men are transferred to other bases and are replaced by newbies, many of whom are youngsters from the South, born in a 4WD vehicle, but not used to the deadly road conditions (rain on top of frozen snow on top of solid ice) there. They arrive in the spring of the year, and have a whole summer to drive fast. So they keep on driving fast when winter comes, believing that 4WD will keep them between the ditches (it does not--often not even with 4 studded snow tires) and they end up in the ditches, roll their customized jeeps, or smack into a rock wall or a tree--or into another car. The locals know better than going too fast, and the Coasties (that's what locals call them) get impatient behind them, pass them, and begin to spin their vehicles in the middle of the highway before leaving the pavement. The locals know a few tricks to stay between the ditches. One of them is driving very close to the shoulder, because that is where the sand and gravel spread by the road department trucks accumulates whereas on the rest of the road it's been covered by ice and offers no traction. And of course when you drive on that slimy ice you must forget you have a brake pedal. You need to go slow enough to be able to stop gradually letting go of the gas pedal and gearing down--but not too much, or the wheels will lock and the car will keep going like a sled and the car will not respond to the steering wheel. At times it takes even an hour to drive ten miles. My wife had to drive ten miles to go to work (she taught at a school on the Coast Guard Base), and it was often hell, what with the ice on the road and blizzards and white-outs. Luckily, she never had an accident in 29 years. She left home at 7:30, and many a time the graders that scraped the frozen snow and the sand trucks hadn't yet gone to work on that highway. Often she (and the rest of the school personnel and of the Coasties who lived in town) was very late because somebody else had had an accident and the traffic was snarled and moving at a snail's pace. Boy, do I love the South!
 
When all that starts melting up North, there is going to be some kind of flooding....
ice collecting on the trees here and pines are drooping.. warming up tomorrow though.
 
herman48 said:
Boy, do I love the South!
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I lived or otherwise been in the South for a total of about 5-6 years.

I just can't get past the amount of heat and humidity.

In the North, I can dress for the cold but in the South, you just can't legally get undressed enough for the heat.

I'll stick to PA where we have 4 seasons (Mud, Road Construction, Fall and Icy cold)
 
I don't like the heat and humidity, either. So I practice reverse hibernation: from May to the end of September I stay home with air conditioner and dehumidifier turned on to the max. If I have to go to the store, I have a/c in the truck and there is a/c in all the stores. I leave the engine running and the a/c on while I'm in the store. And if I have any chores to do outside (like mowing the lawn), I do them after sunset. The riding mower has headlights...
 
Talking about... anything, yesterday I finally was able to take my Argo to the shop to have it fixed (starter solenoid) and maintained (oil/filter change, wheel bearings lube). I love my Kubota, but my Argo occupies a special spot in my heart. I don't know if you remember the feeling when you were little kids with your first pair of rubber boots and went splashing about in rain puddles. Messing around in water and mud with an Argo is pretty much the same. And there are places here where I wouldn't dare drive the Kubota after a substantial rainfall. But in the winter and in the summer the Argo stays in the garage. Too cold in the winter (no cab, no windshield, no heater) and too hot in the summer. Obviously it has no a/c, and the bench seat, covered with black vinyl, will roast your hemorrhoids after it's been parked in the sun for two minutes.
 
No danger of roasting hemorrhoids here but if anyone reading has ever tried touching their tongue to a frozen door knob in the winter would be aware of the possibilities of seating those same hemmorhoids on a cold seat up here. It's official that this is the coldest Feb on record in the last 105 years in this area. (is this how the last ice age started?)
 
Kanook said:
Found the RTV....Now where did they hide the street?
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P.S. ..... (photo of buried car) This isn't really my RTV....think it is from our Canadian province of P.E.I. and the couple dug a tunnel to their car.. (video on u-tube)

In this part of Ontario we have had less than normal snowfall but way below average temperatures.
 
Kanook said:
No danger of roasting hemorrhoids here but if anyone reading has ever tried touching their tongue to a frozen door knob in the winter would be aware of the possibilities of seating those same hemmorhoids on a cold seat up here. It's official that this is the coldest Feb on record in the last 105 years in this area. (is this how the last ice age started?)
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As you know, the Global Warming crowd is saying that the enormous snowfall and polar temperatures you are enjoying are caused by... Global Warming. Never mind what they were saying a few years ago, namely that there would be no snow--just rain--because of Globull Warming...
 
The actual term is Global Climate Change! The average temperature of the earth is rising and this is causing a shift in precipitation and temperatures which in turn causes wide swings in climate - more violent storms, wide swings in temperatures and precipitation amounts. This winter the west of North America has been abnormally warm and dry while the east has been cooler and wetter. This is likely a result of Global Climate Change.
 
Turkeys in the yard today. Hopefully spring is just around the corner. 4 weeks until turkey season
 

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Well, this thread started when BCZoom noticed TWO GUNS was catching him in post count. Today, I noticed that Zoom has now caught back up with him! Way to go, Zoom!

Of course, I know we have missed TWO GUN's posts, and hope he is doing ok.

Fred
 
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