It is beautiful this morning. We got up before sunrise (sounds impressive doesn't it but the sun isn't up before 9 am these days) and drove down to Kincaid park http://www.muni.org/parks/ParkDistrictSW.cfm looking for wildlife. We saw several moose including two bulls. Squirt is pretty impressed at the size of those "dogs". We are on a warming trend and it should get into the 20's today. A nice change from the single digits.
Now that the temperatures are staying below freezing, the snow is flying once a week or so and daylight grows shorter and shorter, there are certain things you have to have if you are going to live here. Mostly items to deal with the cold and snow.
Since moving here we have purchased and used a snow thrower and shovel. Robert is in charge of the thrower and I get the shovel. He is able to do our driveway and sidewalks (and the neighbor's sidewalks) in the amount of time it takes me to do the decking. Once the decking is done, I take time to shovel a few paths in the snow for the little boy. Remember, he is only 12 pounds of pooch and his tummy drags through the snow creating little snowballs in his fur if I don't.
Squirt has been getting really cold feet lately (I would too if I didn't wear shoes outside and it was in the single digits). Unless, of course, something abnormal has wondered through the yard and he is tracking it. Squirt is one hundred percent certain something has been under our porch. Robert isn't really surprised as we grill outside a lot and who knows what that brings to the neighborhood. I just hope whatever it is doesn't bite when Squirt sticks his nose in to say hello some morning.
Oops - I digressed!
Moving from the tropics to the artic caused a lot of new clothing purchases too. (This shouldn't be a surprise.) The local saying here is "cotton kills" - meaning if you are wearing layers of cotton and get wet, it doesn't dry out like other fabrics do. Some people could interpret that to mean "I need a whole new wardrobe." Lucky I'm not quite that bad. There are a couple of weekends in the fall where sporting goods stores and outfitters have huge sales. We found some really good deals on big winter coats, long underwear, balaclava face masks, ski gloves, ski masks (we might ski and it is too good of a deal to pass up), fuzzy slippers (had to have some since you don't wear "outdoor" shoes in the house), wool socks and snow boots. I love my snow boots. They are great for leaving on the rug by the back door and slipping on and off when Squirt has to go outside. They are good for shoveling and walking in the snow.
I actually moved here with two pair of hiking boots. One pair are good to wear to work (which I need since heels aren't necessarily the best on the ice). The others I went for two real hikes last weekend and quickly decided they had seen better days. Time to get new hiking boots for the back country. I found a pair yesterday that are exactly what I want. I can trek through mud and a little water with no problems and if I should happen to fall and break an ankle, these things are high enough and sturdy enough the bone will be well supported. Having never had boots that go this high, I should probably break them in before going too far.
Oh yes...the other big ticket item....studded tires. This was a tough decision since we have a 4 wheel drive vehicle and have always done fine in the snow before. Our tires should be good for at another 20,000 miles. Back and forth, asking co-workers and friends, spend the money or not. In the end - ever concerned about stopping on the ice - we decided to purchase tires. Wow - glad that decision is done it was tough. If only it were that simple. Now come the rest of the decisions...ones with studs all of the time or the kind where studs can be removed? Do we get a whole duplicate set of rims? If so, where are we going to put the "summer rims"? Dealers will charge $50 a tire to put in the studs each year (don't know the cost for removal) and rims are expensive - what if we are only here a couple of years? In the end, we went with full time studded tires with only one set of rims. The "summer" tires are now in the infamous crawl space.
Since a vehicle can legally run studded tires from September to May, the savvy consumer wants to change their tires over to studs the weekend before it snows. If you wait until after the first snow, the lines are horrible. Of course, the trick is knowing when the first snow will come. It took us several weeks to come to the decision to get new tires. Then it took a couple more weeks before we really got serious about purchasing. In fact, I am pretty sure we saw little tiny crystals falling from the sky and I got worried. Many of you know patience is one of my strong suits and I enjoy standing in lines (ROFL). So we took the car in then next night (happened to be a Friday) after work and totally lucked out. We got there an hour before the store closed, there wasn't a line, they had the tires we wanted, they installed them and we drove home.
Let it snow!
And it did. It was right at a week before it really snowed but we were set. (I think we are going to get more!)
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