And now the weather; here’s what it was like at 7:30 this morning. pic.twitter.com/fTBaw8o2xX
— TimHoltorf (@TimHoltorf)
And here’s what it is at 6:00 in the evening. pic.twitter.com/uJNVIfCiBf
— TimHoltorf (@TimHoltorf)
And tomorrow is the last day of April. This snow stuff needs to be gone.
I guess spring is officially here. It rained yesterday, cleaning up all the crappy things, the dirt, the snow, the dirty snow. And it left huge puddles, because, for some reason, Saskatchewan communities haven’t yet figured out how to properly manage sewer and road infrastructure. Not every community, but quite a few. I do realize that part of the problem is that we live in a province that deals with extreme temperatures, and permafrost is a thing here. Ground gets cold, so do things on the ground, then they thaw and crack and need repair. It’s an annual practise.
While it has been rainy, it hasn’t been exactly warm. It’s been about 5 Celsius (with the exception of Monday, which was 15 Celsius and it was awesome). This does not seem to be changing any time before next week.
I shouldn’t complain, the days are getting longer, it is warmer than January’s -30 Celsius. I’ve been getting a bit more motivated to actually write. Jotting down things here and there and even picked up a recorder to record ideas when I’m walking. Nice to live in a place where there’s a Source (Radio Shack).
At least now, I can sit on my balcony (with an umbrella) and have my coffee without shivering from the cold. At least, not too much. It still gets a little cold, after all. Just not -30 cold.
Today is March 1st, and usually that’s when the thoughts of spring come to mind.
However, when I look out my window or read the weather, spring is furthest from my mind. The streets, sidewalks, alleyways and even rooftops are covered in snow. Last night it reached -40 Celsius and today at 11:20 (as I write this) it’s still -31 Celsius.
That’s mid winter deep freeze as I remember it from my childhood. March is supposed to be about things melting, and slush and soupy road conditions. The sun is getting up earlier and earlier, and it sets later and later as we head into March, but it’s not helping with the constant cold that has engulfed us all.
Winter is often the time when I feel my lowest, and the cold and darkness doesn’t help. Spring is a time of hope and often helps me and I feel a lot better. The cold, however, still doesn’t help. Spring is to be about getting your bike out and preparing to ride (though, I do know several people who ride their bikes no matter the weather and do so every single day of the year come rain, snow or shine). It’s supposed to be about baseball and gardening. Preparing for the spring seeding. Waiting with hope for the first flowers to bloom.
Winter is like the long death, as everything hibernates for several months. A sort of gloomy dormancy.
But we’re still 21 days until the first official day of spring. I don’t hold this hope that suddenly on March 21st spring will wipe the snow clean and things will automatically turn green. It’s gradual. But it’s that gradual aspect that tells a person that it’s almost here, the warm weather is coming. We’re safe and we’re whole.
I think I’m getting used to the dark mornings. Of course, this is just as winter is beginning to move into spring.
I can’t really explain it, but there’s something tranquil about the early mornings and the dark still there. Wake up at 5:00 a.m. and it’s still dark. There’s no traffic, noise seems to carry further, you can hear things much more clearly, and there seems to be a sort of peace.
It might have to do with the fact it’s also gotten warmer. After a few weeks of -30 to -20 mornings, the temperature now sits around -10 to -5 in the morning. Which is a good thing.
Eventually, mornings will become lighter again, and I’ll greet that more readily than when summer gives way to fall and fall gives way to winter. Even with the sun rising at 5:00 in the morning, there’s still a peace and tranquility to be had.
On weekends I’ll usually stay up later. On weekdays I get up earlier.
Often, I’ll go out onto my balcony with a coffee and a cigarette, and I can’t help but see all the things around me. Like the building across the street. It’s a set of condos, and often you can gauge when people go to bed and when people get up.
But there’s one neighbour who has a really big television. I could pretty much watch it from my balcony if I desired. Which I don’t because there’s no sound. But I noticed lately, my neighbour’s television is on later and on earlier than usual.
It’s the Olympics. You can tell because you know the way footage for play by play hockey goes, or curling, or figure skating. But my neighbour really seems to like the Olympics.
Like NaNoWriMo, February Writer’s Challenge turned into a very big bust.
I’ve had no motivation to write what I want. I’ve doodled writing, jotting down little bits of things here and there. Never posting anything, because it all feels like crap.
I’ve read over things I’ve written, I’ve become listless when I want to write. I’m not at a very good place creatively, and this bothers me. I suppose it might pass, but I’ve been waiting for it to pass for several months while I write poetry and small stories.
Maybe that’s what I’ll just have to do, to keep some form of creativity flowing. Poetry and short stories.
Now that spring has arrived, I venture outside more often. For those who are saying “but Tim, spring arrived on March 21”, to which I say, no, no it did not. We had 7 months of winter, which Old Man Winter owes us some payback. So this year, I expect summer to last until the end of November. Anyway, now that spring is here, I’ve taken to going out and buying a few things I need and a few things I want. Like new jacket and shorts. I wanted cargo pants, but there weren’t any at the local store, so I had to forego those. But buying a new jacket made me realize I have about two dozen jackets in my closet. Maybe it’s time to give some of those jackets to good will. Thankfully this is a long weekend and I can have some time going through clothes and sorting them out and getting rid of stuff I don’t want (like the shorts that have lost the top button or the shirt that lost the bottom three) and taking them to good will. Like that old GX94 jacket of mine that I’ve (literally) had since 1988.
The jacket I had tagged with GX-94, a radio station in Yorkton, Sask I used to work at.
It might be best, if buy this jacket second hand, that you get a job as an evening announcer.
…and maybe change your name to Tim Stewart.
I also went browsing through the DVD racks to see if there was anything cheap to pick up. Which there was, but nothing I’d buy. Lots of crap movies and a ton of really old stuff that I had no interest in. There was even lots of MMA, WWE and boxing DVDs. What got me, though, was the world championship poker DVDs that I saw. Really? That’s worthy of a DVD? See, I can understand the others, hell, I can even understand curling. But poker is like watching televised chess. Great game, but boring to watch. Same with poker. Same with golf, for that matter. Baseball is slightly better. It’d be something I’d rather see live.
Needless to say, I did not walk out with any DVDs that were in there.
I do, however, have a new jacket.
The month of March saw the highest snowfall for Saskatchewan, more than the rest of the winter. Last week’s storm brought in so much, when Highways were cleared it was almost like driving through a tunnel thanks to the height of the snow pushed to the sides of the road, much like this on Highway 45 north to Delisle. (photo by Derek Ruttle, front page of the March 28 issue of the Outlook weekly newspaper)
Are we at the end? Is there light at the end of the tunnel? I’d like to say yes, I really would, because as I write this, the temperature sits at a balmy -3 Celsius. I say balmy, because that’s at least warmer than the -20s we’ve been having for the past couple of weeks.
What I worry about now is that as the snow melts, and the temperature rises, how much flooding we’ll have. Record snowfall amounts across the province (Regina with over 200 centimetres of snow) means there will be that much water that goes into the ground. It’s good to have snow because that means it’ll seep into the ground in spring which is good for moisture. Which means we’ll have a decent farming season. It also means a good deal will evaporate and later come down as rain. The worry now is flooding.
We’re normally a hot, dry province during the summer, and we don’t experience as much flooding as would be seen in Manitoba. But we’ll have to prepare for it now. Many have been getting their insurance ready for the inevitable, because there’s a fear a lot of basements are going to become ruined thanks to the snow. You have to remember, when snow melts it doesn’t just go into the ground and everything is fine. It drains into whatever area is accessible at the time, and basements are prime for that.
This also means for a while we’ll be up to our necks in mud.
The spring time weather and warmer temperatures, combined with the budding of the trees, that I like. The oncoming tidal wave that will hit thanks to the record snowfall amounts… let’s just say I’m glad I live in a second storey apartment.
Snow: This stuff is evil.
No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn. ~Hal Borland
Really? It sure doesn’t feel like that lately. What with the piles of snow all over the place. I understand Regina has broken their 50 year old snow fall record, and Environment Canada says that we in Saskatchewan have had more snow in March than we have had all winter long. So much for that carrot that was dangled with a promise of plus temperatures, which would have meant melting snow. According to the forecast, today is supposed to be a high of -6 Celsius. Which I guess is fine considering it’s currently -15 Celsius. And it’s all the same for the rest of the week, though the seven day forecast is promising something closer to 0 early next week.
Still, I’m done, I am so done with winter, especially this one, not to say what I think about future winters. I cringe when I hear people talk about going snowmobiling. While they do that, I’d rather be some place warm, not looking at white stuff on the ground. I much prefer spring and summer, even autumn. I can do without the messiness of spring with all of the mud, but at least I have some reassurance that warm weather is coming.
It’s funny, because winter usually only lasts from about early to mid November until mid March. Usually. Sometimes we get an early snowfall in October, and then we have to plan costumes at Halloween that fit under snow suits. And quite often spring doesn’t actually get here until early April, which means that rubber boots have to be kept in storage because it’s too cold to wear them.
I do long for spring, I can’t wait until the trees start budding and the grass begins to grow. It’s my favourite time of year, because it’s a sign of hope. Hope that this cold will go away and the warmth of summer is not far behind. The lengthened days and ability to go outside without having to pack a small ruck sack in order to brave the elements. It’s not just the lengthened days, because the days are getting longer, the sun does get up earlier. But right now, when the sun gets up, it’s only a bitter reminder that there’s still a lot of snow on the ground.
I just wonder when it will all end, and hope that it’s very soon.
Done! So done with this!
I talk about the weather a lot, I know. It may come from my old days as a broadcast journalist (fancy title for “I used to work in a radio station newsroom” and before that “I used to be a disc jockey”). One thing we always draw ourselves toward is one of two comments:
Our mood seems to be fixated on those two points about the day. Now, for each person a nice day might mean a really awful day for someone else. I personally hate snow, but like hoarfrost, whereas someone else may love snow (i’m look at you, you goddamned snowmobile enthusiasts) and enjoy frolicking in it.
By now, we’ve all come to that time of year when anticipation is highest; most of us, myself included, have had it up to here with the snow and cold and we’re all just thinking “get on with it already”. We are, after all, only three weeks away from the first official day of spring. At least in most parts of the world. Now we simply need to sit back and let Jack Frost and Old Man Winter out the door and usher in spring to dance her way around the place and pretty it all up (you know, because Jack and the Old Man have a nasty habit of making a mess of things).
Spring is like this awesome super lady who will come in, make things nice, and eventually give way to Summer. Even Autumn’s not that bad, with the exception that Jack Frost and Old Man Winter aren’t too far away to make an absolute mess of things.
To be honest, I haven’t just recently been getting tired of winter. Oh sure, I like the sight of a crisp winter morning, taking pictures of hoarfrost and sunrises, but there’s that gloom that comes with waking up on a winter morning. It’s dark, really dark. The sun is at least an hour or two away from getting up by the time I get out of bed. Which is usually around 5:30 am. Never used to be that way, me waking up at such an hour, but that’s a story for a different time.
Now, I long for spring, and that saying of hope springs eternal. Well, I just wish it were a hopefully eternal spring.
I awoke this morning at 5:00 am like I usually do, but this morning I awoke with a sudden realization. The darkness.
It was cloudy out, so that contributed to it. It had been raining when I got home and had been cloudy most of the day. Most mornings when it’s cloudy it’s at least a little light out as well. This, however, is September 1st, with only three weeks of summer left. We’ve had a pretty good run, with some very warm days.
The first indication that summer is slowly creeping away is the darkness. Summer always means, for me at least, very early sunrises. It makes it so much easier to crawl out of bed. Not so much during the darkness of winter.
There is one solace, though. Autumn has some of the most beautiful colours around here. There’s also a plus that this fall is predicted to be a warm one. Which we haven’t had in a while. The past few years it’s always gone from sort of warm during summer to crisp and cool into fall, then straight into extreme cold.
Maybe this year we can get gradual cold with it never hitting extremity freezing temperatures.
I’ll miss the sun in the morning, but I’m safe in the knowledge that it won’t be gone forever. Just another few more months and we’ll be back into spring. There’s a lot to do between now and then after all.
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