The new campfire thread...ooooh purrrrty!!!!!!

[Fenlason]

Afternoon, Evening or morning Gentlemen. Just to give yo something to compare, we had 115F on Thursday and its down to 68F today(Sunday)

Cheers
Paul

Yes I still lurk

IT'S PAUL

Hey Paul.. How's it going?

[Fenlason]

We ended up with 6" of snow yesterday. This next storm sounds like a doozy. Maybe 2 feet of snow here.. they are saying maybe 3 feet in some places. Snowing through Monday.. Tuesday lots of blowing.. then more snow for Wed. and Thursday.

While a couple of feet will take some work to clear the driveway. It's the other clean up that I am more worried about. The decks.. roofs and instant garages.

Today? maybe take it easy. I had sort of planned a weight workout.. but the shoveling yesterday hurt.. and with a LOT more to come.. I will take it easy.

Hmm our woodshed is getting low.. it might be a good time to fill that up. We have probably used more in the house this winter, and we have used our fireplace out on the porch a bit.

[toypusher]

Hey Paul, nice seeing ya!

Windy, windy, windy today. Did not get much sleep last night due to all the noise from the wind. 29 degrees and wind of 23 with gusts in the mid to upper 30s. Gonna get windier through about 1 or 2 and then start dropping off I guess.

[Fenlason]

Good Morning.. We got snow all night.. maybe a foot here so far… but they say that was the boring preview.. as the storm is just starting to power up now.

They are saying it should continue until after dark. At this point there isn't much we can do but wait it out. I want to do some clean up.. but it's too early.

Perhaps some Bkool rides this morning. I do wish I could snowshoe.. or ski.. for it would be nice to be out in IT.

[Fenlason]

Fortunately the storm is moving out of our area faster than they thought it would. At around 3:00 you could make out [barely] where the sun was. It was still snowing and blowing.. but it appeared to be letting up. They say we got around 2 feet in our area. Around our house we get a lot of drifting and snow blowing in from across the river. I snowplowed the driveway twice. We shoveled off the deck again. We had shoveled if off yesterday from our last storm.. and we had a bit of it that was 3' deep again today. I shoveled off the bike shop. The area between the house and Laurie instant garage.. is 7 or 8 feet deep. To clean off the roof for Laurie's instant garage.. I had to dig down to it.

The two bigger ones.. were also quite buried. These are taller gambrel style buildings The snow is up to the edge of the upper walls on the downwind sides.

There was an area of the driveway I did not clean this morning.. that area was well over 2 feet deep. [It was coming over the top of the snowblower.]

Our mailbox was gone. At first I thought maybe it got flattened or something.. but I quickly noticed.. it was just buried. It really drifts in that area.. there is a slight curve in the road.. and the thankfully the plow guy now gives our mailbox a wide berth. That whole area was a solid wall 5 feet deep… and the box was a couple of feet back. I am really glad I have that blower on the tractor.

[caseydog]

Afternoon, Evening or morning Gentlemen. Just to give yo something to compare, we had 115F on Thursday and its down to 68F today(Sunday)

Cheers
Paul

Yes I still lurk

Are you staying clear of those fire-nadoes?

I've never seen a wildfire spawn a flaming tornado, and I'd be quite happy to never see one in person.

CD

[caseydog]

Well, goodbye 80s. It is 53 and droping. I was thinking about hitting the sack, hoping I could fall asleep, but a thunderstorm just rolled in, and there are more rolling in behind it.

It looks like cold and rainy for Valentine's day. Being divorced, it doesn't change my plans for the day.

It should be a good evening tomorrow for a fire in the fireplace, comfortable chair, a glass of whiskey, and a dog at my feet. It may not be the "ideal" Valentine's day, but psycho-poodle doesn't expect flowers, hand-rolled chocolates, diamonds and sapphires. I can give him some steak scraps, and he'll worship me.

I need to start thinking about a haircut. I'm starting to look like Glenn. Ummmm, wait, I am Glenn, so I always look like Glenn. I'm starting to look like the other Glenn, the alien sheep Glenn. I've been having some weird dreams lately. Am I becoming an... Oh, that's silly. They can't do that, can they?

CD

[Fenlason]

[toypusher]

Good Morning!

Cool now (24), but should be a sunny and fairly warm day with high of upper 40s. My wife and I do not pay any attention to Valentine's day. Just another Feb day for us. Should be getting out for a good walk today and might even go to the range for a while. Need to put some things back in place after all of the wind yesterday though. And make sure no shingles blew off the house or detached garage.

[Fenlason]

We have sun today. and somewhat warmer [20's maybe] With more snow coming tomorrow

More clean up and shoveling today.

Around 30" of snow here.. on top of the 12" right before this storm.. on top of what we already had on the ground. Add 40+ mile an hour winds.. and you have fun.

It's deep… and pretty but wow! I am really thankful for the blower on the tractor.. for otherwise…we would be in trouble.

We do sort of acknowledge Valentines Day… but we have no big plans…

[caseydog]

Cold and rainy today. I made a new tin foil hat today, just to make sure I don't develop any more alien-sheep-like tendencies.

I have a fire going in the wasteful gas-log fireplace. Psycho-poodle loves it, so I guess it is okay to enlarge my carbon footprint -- just for today. If you have grandkids, blame it on my poodle.

Not much else going on at the doghouse. I am anxiously awaiting the day that I can start planting stuff, especially my peppers and herbs.

Sheepman, riding a bike just isn't the same when it is mile after mile of all flat concrete streets, lined with cookie-cutter houses. I am not too lazy to ride, I just can't handle boredom.

But, at least I cook my own food from scratch as much as I possibly can. When I am on the road for work, and have to eat from restaurants and in airports, I gain five pounds eating food I don't actually really like. A salad on the road is a thousand calories.

CD

[Fenlason]

We were down around 10 degrees this morning.. with thickening clouds.. and more snow on the way.. they are saying 10"-14" here. 46" or so, so far this week. It's been a particularly "nasty" period.

I did do some bkool rides yesterday afternoon. I was feeling kind of blech, but knew I needed to do something. I started with an easier mostly downhill ride that a friend had done. I cranked too fast from the start..[with no warm up], which hurt.. I had to back off a little to catch my breath a little. I was wanting to use that ride as my warm up for my main ride. I wanted my main ride to be something uphill. I was hoping for a nice steady grind. For some reason I chose Alpe d'Huez… Man what a climb! It's an epic climb in France.. one that is often part of the Tour de France. It is just under a 9 mile climb, gaining over 3700 feet in elevation. The ave. grade is over 7% and gets as steep as 14%… or just under 14.

Of all the info that is given you during the ride. BKool gives you and estimated time to completion. I am not sure what they base it on.. or how they figure it, but it isn't all that accurate. Part way into the ride it told me I had another 5 hours to go. I knew it wasn't accurate, but it is still hard to look at that.

It took me just under an hour and 15 minutes.

So far today it's mostly house work.. I am not sure if I will doing anything to strenuous or involved. Our snow isn't really start until later… later and running through the night.

[Fenlason]

Cold and rainy today. I made a new tin foil hat today, just to make sure I don't develop any more alien-sheep-like tendencies.

I have a fire going in the wasteful gas-log fireplace. Psycho-poodle loves it, so I guess it is okay to enlarge my carbon footprint -- just for today. If you have grandkids, blame it on my poodle.

Not much else going on at the doghouse. I am anxiously awaiting the day that I can start planting stuff, especially my peppers and herbs.

Sheepman, riding a bike just isn't the same when it is mile after mile of all flat concrete streets, lined with cookie-cutter houses. I am not too lazy to ride, I just can't handle boredom.

But, at least I cook my own food from scratch as much as I possibly can. When I am on the road for work, and have to eat from restaurants and in airports, I gain five pounds eating food I don't actually really like. A salad on the road is a thousand calories.

CD

May I suggest you cover your feet also.

Cycling isn't for everyone.. regardless of where you live. For some reason I have been passionate about it since early on. It also just so happens to be one of the easier things for me to do now. Even swimming hurts my knees.. despite it being the go to exercise for those that are injured or impaired. I have been plagued with fairly loose knee joints.. and then having torn my ACL's decades ago.. just makes that worse.

I have always been fast on a bike.. and it's important for me to remain that way [on many levels]. So I "work" at it. While a ride like yesterday.. did hurt some..and it wasn't all fun.. most of what I do.. I really enjoy. Occasionally a couple of years ago.. when I was endurance training.. there were some things that were semi boring… or were mentally tough to keep doing… yet that was part of the training.. I did have a goal. It was of course a physical requirement to do what I was doing.. but at those times there was the mental training aspect of it also. One has to have some mental toughness to race a mountain bike for 24 hours.. so one has to work on that in training. One that comes to mind.. hill repeats I did. I would ride up a hill down the other side… turn around and reverse it to the start.. and then repeat.. repeat and repeat. I would do a regular trail ride in that area with others.. then do hill repeats for a few hours after. Each side of the hill was different.. by the time I was done.. it HURT.. but perhaps the worst was the mental aspect.. it mentally hurt. Yet in all the training I did for endurance training even most of that was fun.

I do a bit of weight training /cross training.. to help my cycling.. to just feel better, and to better handle my daily life. Things like shoveling snow.. processing fire wood.. working on the house, are all easier with some fitness.

A friend just posted about their problems with all this snow. They are my age.. and they were in bed barely able to move.. they still had a lot of shoveling to do.. roof to clear.. propane tanks to uncover and clear a path to.. etc. I don't want to "be there" and will do what I can to keep it at bay. I am a big believer in "Use it or Loose it".

[mandy]

Ello

[Fenlason]

Ello

Ello