Coffee anyone ?

[Mini Horses]

Oh, yeah ..... 12" of snow here is disastrous!! Even 6" shuts us down for a week, easy. Some of the local farmers sometimes scrape/plow their own roads to get thru, helps locals. Otherwise, wait for melting. For past 3 yrs our snow has been flurries.... It's barely a skim on cars type snow. We had about 4-5", maybe 6 or 7 yrs ago?? Cold blast with it lasted about a week. Thankfully no power loss here. It was in Jan or Feb. Those are our worst months. There is a VDOT staging area about 4 miles from me, equipment & salt/sand, etc. I'm just 2 miles from a major drive for trucks coming on a N/S transport corridor. They get what equipment is available first.

And I'm in the country. In the "cities" ...Norfolk, Portsmouth, VA Beach, Hampton, Newport News... The business areas, main highways get it. Housing sections -- they don't even try. Close schools & stay home is the method.

Yeah, snow can stay elsewhere. That said, I am concerned this will be a harsh winter. Like, how long can we avoid it???

 

[Bruce]

Hubbs wants company this weekend . I’m just not a fan of this particular buddy. Bored bachelor with time and money on his hands. Also a work client which could spell trouble if Hubbs had to repossess. I feel that way about all his work “friends”. We’ve gotten together at restaurants or events in the past and I wish it would stay that way. Sorry for the whine
Just a grumpy no fun allowed wife.

Your DH wants company, you don't have to be there to entertain them. There must be something fun you want to do away from the house

 

[Mother Hen]

It's all by the coffee pot so fix a cup or glass of Iced Coffee (I'm already on my 2nd one for the day) then we'll decide if we want to sit outside in the 48 cool crisp Autumn morning.

the contractors are not equipped or even in some areas all needed contractors are not hired...

The company that my FH works for is a contractor for VDot and they are all prepared for the winter and the snow and crappy weather. They start prepping for weather getting trucks ready (inspections, anything fixed, plows on, salt boxes on, Brine truck and so on) at the end of August/beginning of Sept so if something needs fixing they have time to do it. I know FH is already having me get his "Snow Season" bag together (extra clothes, meds and so on) together so when the weather does end up getting bad and he needs to be out there for removal or prevention all he needs to do is get it out of the car and get in his "Winter Truck" and be where he needs to be at a certain time.

VDOT is making preparations for a harder winter than the last few have been.

I've heard that this winter is going to be harder than previous seeing how El Nino is back for revenge. I do have a friend who also works for VDot and she says the same thing as you do- VDot is preparing for harder harsher Winter weather and they are working on getting ALL the residencies prepared and set up for it.

 

[farmerjan]

@Mother Hen ; I was not being critical and maybe the company your FH works for is "more ready" than some... VDOT does not have the supplies yet at the headquarters... salt, brine, or the grit for "sanding the roads"... because we use so many smaller contractors here, they all have alot of fall work they are still doing.... and as I said, we use alot of farmers with tractors here and most/all of them are still finishing up fall work. Several of the dairy farmers I milk test for, contract out and we were just talking about it last week at the one farm that they have 2 tractors that they use.... things like the plow frames and all are already on them, and yes, general "get ready" maintenance is done...

BUT... no snow until after Thanksgiving, PLEASE....

Our local VDOT residency that my DS is a supervisor at, said that they work on some of that stuff when the guys come in after other work on roads or whatever they do some of that... but that we have had so much work due to the dead ash trees coming down that the fall cleanup work is taking alot longer. They have even had some contract work being done to take down and clean up some of the dead trees. After a windy storm one weekend a couple weeks ago, they had 6 guys, the big loader and 2 trucks cleaning up trees that had come down on the road that goes along behind my property...on a Monday morning, and had to put off other scheduled work that day... it was a mess, and that was just to cleanup all the "emergency work" they had done to get the road opened up that Sat afternoon when it was impassable...
And we are short of contractors in this area, and several that have been used in the past have been "let go" or have chosen on their own to not renew...
VDOT never should have gone to all this private work on the roads.... there have been a couple of studies that have shown that all the money they "supposedly saved" by not paying workers to work full time, with the benefits of ins and all sorts of "extras"... is costing them as much or more in the very high contractor costs in the winter. But when something like that gets decided, it is nearly impossible to get it reversed. Several years ago we actually had I-81 shut down due to the hazardous road conditions, and it was a huge calamity... and in part it is because there are not enough trucks or drivers.... They had a contractor company that was supposed to be doing the monitoring and general managing of the interstates and the contract was taken away and VDOT is once again doing the constant road monitoring and safety work....due to not following procedures and such...
It is hard in this state to "figure" because we often have such swings in weather conditions... years of next to no bad road conditions and then get smacked with some bad ones... one reason they originally pushed for the contractor thing too... but it has come back to bite them.

You have nice pictures and sayings on the "Good Morning's" you post.

 

[farmerjan]

Oh, yeah ..... 12" of snow here is disastrous!! Even 6" shuts us down for a week, easy. Some of the local farmers sometimes scrape/plow their own roads to get thru, helps locals. Otherwise, wait for melting. For past 3 yrs our snow has been flurries.... It's barely a skim on cars type snow. We had about 4-5", maybe 6 or 7 yrs ago?? Cold blast with it lasted about a week. Thankfully no power loss here. It was in Jan or Feb. Those are our worst months. There is a VDOT staging area about 4 miles from me, equipment & salt/sand, etc. I'm just 2 miles from a major drive for trucks coming on a N/S transport corridor. They get what equipment is available first.

And I'm in the country. In the "cities" ...Norfolk, Portsmouth, VA Beach, Hampton, Newport News... The business areas, main highways get it. Housing sections -- they don't even try. Close schools & stay home is the method.

Yeah, snow can stay elsewhere. That said, I am concerned this will be a harsh winter. Like, how long can we avoid it???

Do I like this or be sad????

 

[Mini Horses]

Good morning, Friday the 13th. Yesterday was such a screwy day, today has to be better. I woke sleepy, stayed sleepy and it took me until afternoon to realize why I was so strange. Awoke during that night with sinus headache, took a pill and it wasn't the non- drowsy kind.. The day was a blur. Thought it was Fri but it was Thurs. I worked late day, still in slow motion. And slept until 8:30 this morning!!

This morning has begun late but, clear headed...meds out of system. Coffee just finished and smells wonderful! Sun is up, rain isn't happening until tomorrow . It's all good.

HOPING !!!!! We don't want snow here this winter, either. Especially a big snow. . But, I'll prepare -- in case. And I'll believe any suggestions of that as it comes along, being thankful if it doesn't.

 

[Poka_Doodle]

Good morning from snowy Wyoming. Got maybe two inches in the grass, and enough to ice up the roads a little. Was 26 when I got up to start my car and go to the gym. It's all supposed to melt this weekend.
Fortunately the leafs are mostly off the trees here, think this is pretty typical for a first snow for us. It isn't unheard of to have a September storm every few years here. The plows focus on the interstate, so the roads are never great, compared to what I am used to, but everyone here is used to that.
Y'all stay warm and hopefully the snow won't blow your way.

 

[Baymule]

I wasn’t prepared for frozen water lines last year and I’m not prepared this year. As long as power doesn’t go off, I’ll survive. I have a propane heater and stove, so if worst comes to worst I can stay warm. Water for animals gets critical because their buckets freeze. Toting buckets of boiling water to pour on and melt ice in their buckets is not fun. I have a 300 gallon stock tank at son’s house I’ll bring home and I can fill it up. I can always bust ice in it and bail out water for sheep. I’m on my second year here and have got a lot done considering that I had knee replacement surgery 3 weeks after moving in last year. Also it’s just me, no extra set of hands, but I’m blessed with good friends and neighbors. Still no decent barn for sheep, I’ll be working on that and more fence this fall and winter. NO SNOW!!!!

 

[Alaskan]

Toting buckets of boiling water to pour on and melt ice in their buckets is not fun.

Easier to bring the buckets in at night, and bring them back out in the morning.

Or... dump the buckets out at night, so they are empty, and refill in the morning.

With a big water trough.... you want a submersible heater..... buy one now, while they are still available.

Should be 20 to 50 range.

 

[peteyfoozer]

Got all the chickens processed yesterday morning while it was 39 degrees. So glad it’s done and the fatties are gone. I need to clean out rest of freezers today and make room for them.
Fen got into my yarn and had all my new, nice, soft yarns all over the living room, the twit!
Gotta pick the rest of the apples today and process more tomatoes since I have another bushel of them, on top of doing freezers. Gonna be a long day today! I wonder how much I will actually get done?
Shall we start a betting pool?
Super tired still and anxious for coffee.