I was finally able to upload my images and was working on a post about the storm and current conditions.
Then the power went out.
It has been off and on several times since. There are outages all over the south and central areas of the province, so we are doing much better than others.
The shut down killed my blog post, though. Not even the auto-save to draft remaining. After several times cutting out, I’ve just left the computer off and am just making this quick post on my phone, while I still can!
We are well and safe, though, and that’s what matters.
Also…
I am SO GLAD we got those trees cleared away from the power lines and roof. I don’t think I will ever stop being so relieved by that. Especially in conditions like we just had!!
I’m still having difficulties uploading images, so I’ll have quite a bit of catch-up to do later. So far, I’ve been able to upload a few photos here and there, but not enough to do even one complete post with them! The rest of the family is having slow uploads on their machines, too, so it seems like it’s our internet, even though downloads seem to be unaffected.
For now.
The predicted snow and stormy weather has arrived. When I drove my daughter to work, we had some freezing rain, but just barely enough to feel it. We started to drive into snow the closer we got to town.
After dropping her off, I stopped by the lake to see the conditions. It took a while, but I was at least able to upload this video.
I was being pelted with freezing rain as I took this, so I didn’t stay out long. By the time I went from getting this video to getting to a gas station, just a few blocks away, the freezing rain had become blowing snow. On the drive home, I was heading right into the oncoming storm! Visibility was down to about 150 meters, if that.
As I write this, the winds seem to be doing down – at least for a little while. It’s supposed to continue snowing through tomorrow, then be rain and snow on Saturday. By Sunday, it should clear up. Which is good, because we are having Thanksgiving dinner that day with my old brother; we’ll get to finally meet their first grandson! I certainly hope the highways are good, because they’re driving in from out of province. :-( Looking at the weather radar, this storm system is coming almost straight up from the US, so they should be clear for most of their drive. Unfortunately, the most severe part of the system looks like it’ll pass over the city. My brother’s place may get some of that, too. While they may not get the worst of it, they’re definitely going to get hit harder than we are. My nephew and his family will have to drive through that to get to my brother’s.
After this, things will start to warm up a bit and I expect that, locally at least, the snow will not stay. Which is good, because we still have some winterizing to do out there!
For the first time, I got an automated call on our land line, with a storm warning.
Looking at the radar, it still looks like the brunt of it will miss us – a town to the north of us looks like it’s going to be hit hard. Most of the warnings are for the south east of our province.
Earlier today, a big piece of tree behind the house came down – a tree right next to the 2 we had taken down earlier this year.
I am SO glad we were able to get that done!
The piece fell harmlessly on top and behind the pile of wood of the two we took down.
A series of thunderstorms made their way through our area. Our power flickered off and on about 6 times, that I know of. The first time it happened, I was on my desktop computer, when suddenly, it was off. !! Thankfully, I wasn’t working on anything that was affected by it.
I’m rather happy that we have power bars, everywhere!! :-D
All caught up with March, and now posting photos taken this month.
These were taken on April 4 – the day I drove my husband to the hospital in the city for some tests, and got him back to his room at the local hospital, just before a storm hit.
The weather outside may have been nasty, but that didn’t stop some hungry redpolls!
If you look behind the birds, you can get some idea of just how windy is was – like in the first one, where you can see seeds being blown away!
Some video from the storm we had a little while ago.
Though we had quite the light show at midnight, we were very fortunate. Across a lake to the west of us, a tornado touched ground, causing quite a bit of damage, and resulting in one death. The Reeve of that municipality declared a state of emergency to deal with the damage.
We had a storm sweep through last night – lots of rain and lightning, but oddly, no wind.
These two photos were taken .04 seconds apart.
My older daughter and I went into the sun room to watch, and there were many times when the yard was suddenly bright as day!
I tried to take video as well, and have one that I will upload later. It’s a lot darker than what we were actually seeing, but still shows how much lightning we were getting.
I did a walk around the yard before driving my younger daughter to work, and was amazed by the complete lack of downed branches. Usually, any stiff wind will at least send willow branches flying. Not a one!
Which I am grateful for. This morning, I learned that a tornado touched down to the south of us, and at least one home was torn from its foundation.
We have much to be thankful for here. The brunt of storms always seems to pass our area by.
The Re-Farmer
Update: I have since learned that the tornado touched down to the northwest of us, on the other side of another lake. One person was found dead next to his destroyed home. :-(
We got hit by a short, but intense storm today. Severe enough to warrant shutting down the computers.
I got a couple of videos, so when the storm passed, I turned on my desktop, and began uploading the videos.
Then the power went out.
It was just for a few seconds. Then it came back on. Then off. Then on again. Then flickered a bit.
So much for my uploads!
I didn’t try again until after picking up my younger daughter from work. Thankfully, my older daughter and I had put on the new windshield wipers, first! Turns out that we have to open the hood to be able to access the wiper arms, which meant I could barely reach, and couldn’t see. The wipers the van came with were broken and kept together with electric tape, which had come off some time ago, so the ends on the driver’s side blade were just sort of flopping.
Changing wiper blades should be easy. Just pop off the old ones, pop on the new ones. But no… that would be too easy! I got the old wiper blade off, but there was a piece attached to that arm that should have come off, too. It wouldn’t. After a while, I figured I’d put the old blade on and try again later. That didn’t work; a piece broke off, instead. So later on, I backed the van out of the garage so we could see, then popped the hood.
Of course, that’s when it started to rain. *sigh*
After righting with it for a bit, and another piece breaking off, I drove it back into the garage while my daughter got our tool kit (with all the stuff in the garage, do you think there are any actual usable tools in there? Nope!). While waiting, I got the passenger side blade changed. That one came off easily, and the new blade popped right on, the way it’s supposed to.
It took a pair of pliers and elbow grease to get the driver’s side arm bar clear of the broken bit. Once that was done, the new blade went on quite easily. Yay!
It made all the difference while driving in the rain!
As for the videos, I’ve had some trouble uploading them; I think the power outage happening while I was trying to upload them the first time messed things up. As I type this, the second video is still uploading, after the file got rejected three times! But it seems to be fine now.
After the storm, I did a walk around to see if there was any damage. A few branches had come down, but nothing serious. I did another walk around after picking up my daughter, and there were even more branches down. No roof damage, though, which is the main concern. :-)
The sky is clear, now, and it’s looking lovely out there. The rain is much appreciated!
The Re-Farmer 