I Didn't Sign Up For This
When we moved to northern New Mexico we knew that it snowed in winter and that it could get cold. We anticipated occasional light fluffy stuff that did not linger. No one even owns a snowblower here. The sun is still intense even in deep winter at 7,000 feet, and snow evaporates quickly.
This year I never got them off, and they are now soaked by repeated snow, some rain, and sub freezing temperatures that don't let them thaw out.
When we moved here I knew that at times the temperature would dip into the teens, or hover near freezing. But all this fall and now into winter, night after night has been in the teens. It's unusual to have such a long stretch of very cold weather.
Our homes can take weather below freezing, but aren't built for that kind of sustained freeze. Our outside faucets froze and burst the faucet fittings. They now spew water when turned on and we have to get a plumber. I had shut them off and taken the hoses in, but with no interior shut off valve (we have no basement), the faucet itself froze rock solid.
I did not sign up for this. I thought we had escaped heavy snow and frozen faucets when we found ourselves in such a nice climate the first winter here. Our second winter has been a cold surprise.
It was officially 5 degrees in Santa Fe this morning but when I got up at 7 a.m. our security monitor said zero, and showed "feels like" minus 14 degrees. I really did not enroll in this program when we moved here.
On New Years' Eve another snowstorm is coming.
Santa Fe does not plow its streets -- they only do main arteries and any roads that lead to a school. We have a school up the street from us, but it's Christmas break, so there is no plowing. Jim shoveled our sidewalk by hand, but the street will stay untouched until school reopens.
With snow in the streets, bitter temperatures, and the increasing burden of days and days and days of this already, I am getting housebound and bored. I'm shopping online for after-Christmas sales, and my Amazon cart is full of kitchen gadgets I don't need which can't even be delivered until they plow the road to the school after the first of the year. Or spring, whichever comes first.
Happy New Year!
But it's been snowing off and on since late October and as the year ends, we are blanketed in white stuff and roofed in gray skies. We came back from visiting family over the holidays in a heavy snowstorm. The highway from the airport had been closed for two hours, but had reopened by the time we were driving home.
There have been some warm(ish) sunny days over the past months, yes, but nothing like last year when it was perpetually dry and balmy all winter. Last winter every time we took the patio chair cushions off and stored them in the garage, we'd haul them back out again for a nice sit in the warm sunshine on a winter's day. So we finally left them on all season.
When we moved here I knew that at times the temperature would dip into the teens, or hover near freezing. But all this fall and now into winter, night after night has been in the teens. It's unusual to have such a long stretch of very cold weather.
Our homes can take weather below freezing, but aren't built for that kind of sustained freeze. Our outside faucets froze and burst the faucet fittings. They now spew water when turned on and we have to get a plumber. I had shut them off and taken the hoses in, but with no interior shut off valve (we have no basement), the faucet itself froze rock solid.
I did not sign up for this. I thought we had escaped heavy snow and frozen faucets when we found ourselves in such a nice climate the first winter here. Our second winter has been a cold surprise.
It was officially 5 degrees in Santa Fe this morning but when I got up at 7 a.m. our security monitor said zero, and showed "feels like" minus 14 degrees. I really did not enroll in this program when we moved here.
On New Years' Eve another snowstorm is coming.
Santa Fe does not plow its streets -- they only do main arteries and any roads that lead to a school. We have a school up the street from us, but it's Christmas break, so there is no plowing. Jim shoveled our sidewalk by hand, but the street will stay untouched until school reopens.
With snow in the streets, bitter temperatures, and the increasing burden of days and days and days of this already, I am getting housebound and bored. I'm shopping online for after-Christmas sales, and my Amazon cart is full of kitchen gadgets I don't need which can't even be delivered until they plow the road to the school after the first of the year. Or spring, whichever comes first.
Happy New Year!
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