Category Archives: Weather +Climate

Health, Judaism, Politics, Weather +Climate

Down Goes the Sun

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Winter                                                                         Cold Moon

The end of the day here on Shadow Mountain. The sun, disappearing behind Black Mountain, lights up a few narrow cumulus clouds while light leaves the land around our home.

My energy has begun to return to normal. It has taken this long, 8 weeks; but, I’m finally back to writing Superior Wolf and plan to get to the Latin soon. Those two plus writing this blog are my work right now.

The Beth Evergreen community has begun to feel like home, more so for Kate, I think, but somewhat for me, too. I imagine that feeling will deepen over time.

Tomorrow night I’m going to the Conifer Community Church for a meeting of Organizing for Action-Conifer. This will be my first meeting, perhaps their fourth or fifth. I’m looking forward to meeting like minded folk, allies in what will be a long pull.

 

Asia, Family, Health, Jefferson County, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Bought Just-In-Case

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Winter                                                                  Cold Moon

The full cold moon lights up the back, hanging above Shadow Mountain in the northwest sky.  A dusting of fresh snow, maybe 1/2″, was easy to clear off the back deck. Minnesota cred should find me feeling warm at 23 degrees, but I’m slipping, beginning to absorb the local definitions of cold. If it’s in the single digits, down coats and Sorels. Well, I’m not quite there. Not yet.

Brother Mark is my Phnom Penh stringer right now, reporting live from the streets. He saw Hanukkah candles and a Chabad House, a crying Chinese girl, a naked Khmer boy playing with a string attached to his sister’s hand, a casino called Nagaworld where he found clean restrooms and lots of smoking. Mark also reports that the Cambodian economy is enjoying steady 7% growth, an increasing affluence he can see compared to his last visit ten years ago. I’m glad to hear this. I liked the Cambodians I met in 2004 during my trip to Angkor.

Apparently, my doc wanted to be sure I’d gotten off the bad drugs. We did my 6-month PSA, still following up after the prostatectomy and did a panel she wanted to see. Lisa cares about her patients and it was clear yesterday she wanted to be sure I was getting past the surgery. A good feeling.

Here’s a note from Pinecam.com to finish off. Just a glimpse into what’s out there:

“Selling a BNIB Radical Firearms AR15 rifle and a Radical Firearms 7.5” AR15 pistol. These are factory-built firearms, not garage builds. New in boxes, never fired.

I bought these before the election “just-in-case” but now I don’t really have a need for them. My loss, your gain.

$500 each. Comes with all factory swag and a few nice extras. Sorry, no mags included.

For some reason I can’t seem to upload photos to this ad, but do have a complete ad with more details and photos on Armslist under “Firearms”.”

 

 

Colorado, Minnesota, Weather +Climate

Snow Eaters

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Winter                                               Cold Moon

“Duluth spent about 63 hours below zero from Tuesday night to Friday afternoon, Embarrass hit 37 below zero Friday morning and wind chills across the Northland nosed 40 below zero over the past week.

And the arctic blast isn’t over yet. A wind chill advisory remains in effect until noon Saturday for all of the Northland, with wind chill values into the 30s below zero.” Duluth News Tribune, January 6, 2017

Just an example of why Minnesota came in number 1 on a recent list of worst winters. It’s why the winters here in Colorado, which came in 47th on the same list (seems off to me, but, hey), can seem almost a different season than the one 40 years in Minnesota acclimated me to.

This week has featured both snow and snow-eaters. The snow has not been much, less than an inch, plus flurries today, though last week’s snow freshened up and plumped up our snow cover. Then, we get the chinooks, the snow-eaters.

These ferocious winds can reach 90 mph and exceeded that outside Colorado Springs with 113 mph blasts whipping a fire through a suburban neighborhood. Chinooks are creatures of the mountains. This illustration explains them very well.

chinook

In the instance of Shadow Mountain we are on the eastern, lee side, of the continental divide, the right side in this illustration. When the circumstances are right, the winds begin to fall down the lee side, gathering speed and warmth as they plummet toward the plains (adiabatic heating), also losing moisture as their temperature rises. Thus, the snow-eater.

We’ve had two long instances of chinooks this week, one tentatively underway right now. The lodgepoles dip and bend. Near their tops the trees look like they’re wrestling each other. Anything not nailed down blows away. The piles of snow melt. Note that this is not the solar snow shovel, but a separate phenomenon. Just another way in which Colorado winters differ from the sort experienced in Duluth over the last few days.

Family, Health, Weather +Climate

Bringing You to Up To Date on Shadow Mountain Doings

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Winter                                                                           Cold Moon

The cold, just a bit of thickness left. The knee. Stiff in the mornings now, but becoming more supple. P.T. this morning at 7:30 am. Work. Still not back, though soon, maybe even today. Sleep. Sigh. Episodic and mysterious.

This new knee has been a difficult thing. Much more difficult than I imagined. Still, the positive elements of it have begun to assert themselves. It will take time to get my muscles back to their pre-surgery, pre-arthritic knee level, but that’s o.k. I have time.

I see my internist, Lisa Gidday tomorrow. She asked me to come in. Didn’t say why. It’s always a little disconcerting when your physician asks to see you. I’ll find out soon.

Kate’s in a much cheerier place now that the endoscopy came back normal. If momma ain’t happy, then nobody’s happy. She has Bailer Patchworkers today, a sewing group that meets at the Bailey Public Library. Very close to the library, but across 285 to the south, is The Happy Camper. Kate’s sewing days often end in a drug run. I’m getting another couple packages of Cheeba Chews, Indica (a strain of M.J.).

Ways the divorce creates upset. Through Jen’s lawyer Jon has been told that he can’t go to the Pontiac St. house to get the remainder of his things until closing. The kicker with this is that Jen has moved out to a condominium and no longer resides there. The restraining order specifically mentions the house, however, and without her permission he can’t get in. Frustrating. To put it mildly.

We had some snow last night, about an inch, similar amounts expected over the next couple of days or so. The cold has gone. Winter is firmly resident now, but in that peculiar Colorado way of snow, then melt. We had chinooks, snow-eaters, yesterday. These are warm winds that roll down from the continental divide toward the Great Plains. We’re in the way. Gusts up to 90 mph. More on them in a later post.

 

Family, Health, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

A Little Hegge

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Winter                                                                     Cold Moon

We had a somewhat snowy, somewhat cold introduction to 2017, but in the Colorado way, we will warm up into the high 40’s for today and tomorrow.

Organ recital: Knee. Up and down stairs, bend down (still creeky), little to no pain, swelling way down, incision looks good. Illness, a cold, receding. Outlook. Cheery, more energy this week. Ready for it.

We had a fire last night. Probably haven’t used the fireplace as much as we could. It was nice, a crackling fire and the new arrangement of furniture means we’ll use it more this year. Also, saw an article about hegge, pronounced hewgah, a style of Scandinavian comfort that seems to fit in with using the fireplace more. Maybe we’ll introduce it here.

Generally feeling up after a long grind. Knee surgery has a traumatic, car crash element to it with bone saws, drills, punches, inserted metal. Recovery from the trauma of the surgery takes the most time. Nerves have to awake. Muscles need to get prodded by the awakening nerves. The swelling, which creates a lot of the pain, takes a while to resorb. All this requires patience, narcotics and family members willing to put up with an invalid. Thankfully, most of this is in the past now.

Still wondering about the immediate future, what I’ll do when I pick up the keyboard again, the Latin dictionary, the Mesillat Yesharim. Not worried, just wondering.

About a year ago I began an effort to revamp my reading. I did the bibliotherapy bit with the lovely author from Australia. I thought long and hard. And it all resulted in…very little change. I’m still wanting to get some more direction, more purpose into my reading life. Not sure how that’s going to happen, but I want it to.

Since the Pontiac house goes on the market soon, that will reduce one major obstacle to both Jon and Jen literally moving on from the divorce. The divorce is already gradually receding as a part of our lives, even though its fallout will affect us for years to come.

 

Colorado, Minnesota, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Continuing the Theme of the Post Below

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Winter                                                                   Cold Moon

Well. -7 in the middle of the night here and in the early a.m. As we used to say in Minnesota, “It’s going to get chilly pretty soon.” Snowfall amounts lower than anticipated. This is the first time in the last two winters I can recall a storm underperforming here on Shadow Mountain. It does make it easier to get to p.t. at 7:30 a.m.

Coloradans are conditioned in odd ways, both related to snow and to cold. Our Mussar class canceled last night. If Minnesota canceled things under similar circumstances, not a lot would happen over the winter. The cold really gets to them, too. Single digits are down-coat or stay in the house and wait it out weather. -7! Burrow. Turn up the boiler. Find that damned electric blanket. The not insignificant exception to both are, of course, the many skiers who live here, including Jon who has his ski boots out by the door this morning. Snow day!

The reason for these attitudes is a prevailing belief, usually correct, that if it snows today, it will melt tomorrow. Or, if not then, the next day, thanks to the solar snow shovel. The cold is a bit more complicated. Here in the mountains if you’re in the sun, even on a cold day, you heat up pretty fast. If you move into the shade? Temps plummet. So, if the overall temperature is what you might find in the shade on a cold day, well, things have gotten pretty bad.

Don’t know whether we’ll get plowed or not. Here, before you go to the trouble of blowing or plowing a driveway, you look at the weather forecast. If, as in the next few days, temps will hit high forties, low fifties on sunny days, then clearing the snow is not a requirement. It does help, of course, and if my knee were done healing, I’d probably get out and clear this one.

Brother Mark’s road journey continues, speaking of temperatures. He left Bangkok a couple of days ago after his visa expired. He’s now in Phnom Penh, Cambodia where it’s 82 with 73% humidity.

Dogs, Family, Health, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

Snow. Falling.

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Winter                                                            Cold Moon

The snow has come. It started right on time at 9:30 am and continues now, at 5:30 pm. Not a lot of accumulation so far, but the forecast has the big shot coming tonight through tomorrow morning. After a quiet November and December, it’s fun to get the snow groove back. Here the weather forecasters gleefully predict the potential for lots of snow. Colorado is that sort of state.

The knee has calmed way down. I’m doing my exercises, three sets a day, and attending out patient p.t. twice a week. The whole pain, trauma, drug, rehab arc, while positive on the whole, has upset my body and refuses to let me come to a stable, yippee I’m better! place. Nausea, achiness, insomnia are hardly the four horsemen of the apocalypse but in the moment they can make a day miserable. This will pass.

I’ve also been a bit weepy today, crying (or about to) at silly stories on facebook, in the newspaper. You know the ones where the big, burly guys row out onto a fully iced lake, breaking the ice in front of them, to retrieve a dog hanging onto the edge of a hole into which he has slipped. Heroic things, compassionate acts, that sort of stuff.

I’m in that transitional phase between invalid and a returnee to normal life, neither one nor the other, pining for unremarkable days with routine moments, yet not far removed from agony and narcotics. Makes for an emotionally friable inner life. At least today.

Kate, I’m happy to say, has brightened since her normal endoscopy. She’s had a hell of a few months, especially December. She had me to care for, the  grandkids here for 8 wonderful, exhausting days and the threat of some dire disease lurking under her constant fatigue. It’s enough to throw even this steady Norwegian into a bit of a spin.

Gertie loves the snow. She goes outside and immediately plunges her face into the snow, pushing along with her nose as a plow. Then she hops up, shakes off and falls over on her back, sensuously rolling this way and that, legs in the air, squirming like an overturned bug. Kepler and Rigel like the snow, too, but they’re not that enthusiastic.

Dogs, Family, Latin, Translating Metamorphoses, Weather +Climate, Writing

At An Undisclosed Location

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Winter                                                                          Cold Moon

There’s a bright golden haze on Black Mountain. The clouds presaging the storm pile up over the continental divide to the west, then begin to slip over to our side. The sun’s rising and it has painted those clouds with a brush from Raphael’s palate. Over the course of the day they will slump this way, graying the sky and carrying the moisture necessary for what Weather5280 now estimates as 10-20 inches of new snow. And so we rest in those delicious moments before the heavy snow arrives, estimated to be around 9:30 a.m.

New information in divorce matters. Jen has moved out of the house on Pontiac Street to an “undisclosed location.” Ruth apparently knows where it is, but didn’t offer to tell Jon and he won’t ask. That’s part of the restraining order which is still in place, no using the kids as communication conduits. This is a positive moment for Jon though because it means he can get in the house and get the remainder of his stuff.

Kepler has astounded Kate and me. He tore off the outside nail on his left front paw, leaving the quick exposed. Pretty painful. We took him to the vet on Monday. They sedated him, cleaned up the nail, put a bandage on it, then wrapped the whole foot in a bandage and some leopard spotted coban. He has not touched the foot bandage. Not at all. Every other dog we’ve had would have had that damn thing off the same night without an e-collar.

I’ve rethought turning my life over again. The threads I’ve got established are substantial and nourishing: novels, working out, Latin, this blog, mountain living, friendships, Beth Evergreen. I want to sustain the momentum I have in all these areas, so my life will remain much the same. Two changes I do want to make. I want to include more reading time, reading non-fiction on such topics as: the West, American political life, magic, science. Also, I need to find, sometime in the next month or so, a platform for the anti-Trump work.

It will be awhile before the rhythms reestablish and the new changes take hold. Though the knee is no longer painful, there’s still a long way to go before it’s rehabbed. That means distractions related to the knee will continue. Also, I have to wrestle this sleep demon to the ground and exorcise it. These things will happen.

 

Family, Health, Weather +Climate

Sleep. Gone.

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Winter                                                     Cold Moon

Sleep has finally gone on holiday for me. Not sure why, maybe no reason. Over the weekend I did have withdrawal symptoms since I stopped my narcotics: chills, upset stomach, agitation, generally feeling lousy. Kate says lost sleep might be part of withdrawal, too. I hope so.

We’re in storm’s coming mode. Not much of a storm by last winter’s showing, but at least a bona fide winter weather warning. 6-12 inches at the outside. I like it. We have no where to go and can enjoy the snow as it comes. I’ll be cleaning off the deck, which is pretty easy, but if plowing is required Ted will do it, that’s Ted of All Trades.

The knee has largely quit hurting, moves with more ease and is easier to use to go up stairs. The recovery arc is positive.

Haven’t mentioned the divorce in a while. Final orders were cut, so the marriage dissolved officially on Nov. 28. The house is the big remaining obstacle. It needs to be sold because both of them need the proceeds to pay for lawyers and to buy new homes. The hot, hot Denver housing market suggests the house will sell quickly and for a substantial gain. I hope so.

Of course, with joint custody and decision making, as I discovered, you are really divorced to someone, rather than from someone.