Winter's Last Hurrah

Okay. Got to admit it. I'm thrilled.

Not at all a bad opening to the spring!

But don't be dismayed. Old man Winter is packing it in. Have you seen the forecast for this Sunday, Easter Sunday? Going to be in the fifties.

But finishing the winter this way was a nice touch. Every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of Lights, with Whom is no variableness nor shadow of turning. Underneath that blanket of snow, spring is just waiting. There will be flowers within weeks; don't be dismayed. It's almost time to think about gardens, and lawn-mowing and forsythia.

In the meantime, I'm enjoying the snow.

Winter Storm Warning

Radar shows this nice mega-mass of precip headed our way. Supposed to get 7+" out of this little number, possibly as much as 10".

Temps a little warm at present. 32.6 on my back porch. Been thinking about emptying the ice tray into the back yard, to help out a little bit. Need to shave that 6/10 of a degree off the thermometer, and quick. Show-time should begin in about an hour, gets really heavy after midnight (an inch an hour).

Doris is making a batch of her awesome chicken-corn-chowder. Yummy stuff. We are about to play a round of Carcassonne, and then watch The Hobbit a little later. She even made a batch of cookies. Neither of us have to go to work tomorrow. Going to be Winter's last blast, and we're going to enjoy it, every last snowflake.

Have some church members about to leave for PA to assassinate Punxsutawney Phil, the groundhog. Seems that the little whistle-pig got his forecast a mite confused. Wonder if he was thinkin' of last year? Anyway, the only resident of Ohio not yet sick of winter is yours truly. Maybe I'm lucky they're not coming after me. 

Hmm. Never thought of that. Think I'll go lock the door and draw the curtains . . .

Waiting on Guhsnow in Greenville  [which usually never comes. Pardon the obscure literary allusion]

PC

Oh yeah!

My shoulders are sore. My jeans are wet down around the shoes. Kind of cold. But there's a big smile on my face: I've just come in from shoveling SNOW!!! Oh, yeah!

Let me tell you about a picture-perfect day. Actually let's start with last night. We had our entire crew with us for the holidays. What a blessing, what a joy! There've been ten of us at 321 S. Chippewa since last week. Actually, make that 110. Luke and Rory count for about fifty people each; something about the effect Christmas has on little kids.

Anyway, Doris and I've been sleeping on the floor in the basement. She's had the futon, and I've been putting our exercise mats (of P90X fame, a nightmare of the distant past) to good use. No, not exercising! Sleeping!

We had a wonderful Christmas day together yesterday. But  between 10 PM last night and 3 AM this morning, our census went from 110 to 2 (Luke and Rory took their energy and excitement with 'em). Because of the weather, everyone bugged out a bit early. Around 10PM last night, Dani and Erik (kids in tow) took Josh and Abbie to Columbus, trying to beat the storm. The California Cobbs had to catch a flight out of Columbus today. They managed to get the flight time moved up from 4 PM to 7 AM (it was fortunate, too, because their 7 AM aircraft was the last to leave from that gate this morning before they started canceling flights). In any case, they reached their destination (Omaha) safely.

David drove Lauri back to Cincinnatti at 3 AM (she had to open the Starbucks store this morning).

Everyone got out of Dodge while the gittin' was good. So I arose at 6 this morning and had the sun room to myself. Enjoyed a cup of coffee and the last several chapters of Acts while watching the snow.

When my bride got up (much later!) she fixed a great breakfast. Just happen to have a picture of it.

It was a beautiful, relaxing day after an extremely busy Christmas season.

But snow means that someone's got to deal with it, and that someone would not be football momma. My pleasure becomes my problem, so when the white stuff stopped falling out of the sky, I went out to the shed to have a chat with my snowblower.

Unfortunately, my snowblower shared my wife's opinion: if I like snow so much, I can jolly well grab a shovel. It was fixated on not moving out of its warm, dry shed (well, dry anyway), my protestations to the contrary not withstanding.

The cantakerous contraption makes its opinion known through the simple [manifestly rebellious] act of not starting. That's one reason why my shoulders hurt tonight. The other reason would be the ridge of snow that the city plow left in front of my driveway. Someone must have told him that I love snow. That ridge would have done the Sierra Nevada proud. In any case, that stupid snowblower was not about to start up. Dumb machine.

Fortunately, I possess what I call "the nuclear option." No small engine has yet been able to resist this bit of persuasion.

Yep. That's football momma's blow dryer. Please don't tell her it was on the floor. I really don't want to sleep in the basement again on those stupid exercise mats.

Anyway the snowblower started and did its thing, and I shoveled the Sierra Nevada into my yard. And I am sore.

But I still love snow.

First measurable snowfall

I'd like to be the first person in Greenville to report that a snow event has occurred yielding the season's first measurable snowfall. This is important, you see, because . . . , well, because . . . , um, . . . , listen, I shouldn't really have to explain this to you. Everybody knows it's important, right?

I have photographic evidence just in case you missed it. Here, look:

If you look really closely, you can see it.











Actually, I have a better picture of it. Check this out:

See?









In an effort to measure the depth, I got a little closer. If you look carefully, I think you can tell that it would probably come up to an ant's butt, though the ground is not yet fully covered.


































But just wait. It will be.

In other news, I've done a re-design to my author website. The pictures that come up on the header, as well as the picture on the "about C H Cobb" page, are from Doris' and my trip to Colorado in 2010. I've also added a "Buy" button, enabling a visitor to purchase a copy of Outlander Chronicles: Phoenix right on my website.

The overhaul of the web site will continue, and I'll be adding additional pictures from our trip to Colorado over time.

I've been making great headway on my Psalm 90 devotional commentary, A Prayer of Moses the man of God, as well as Falcon Down. Both books should be coming out on a late-winter/early-spring time frame.

I've finally convinced Doris to begin marketing her sketches in the form of notecards. Stay tuned: she has a web site (it's under development right now) on which her artwork, and that of her sister, will be displayed. As soon as it's ready, we'll let you know how to find it.

The script for the Caraway Christmas Children's Church production has been re-written, based on an original script by Ron Solomon. It's going to be a lot of fun. It's about three bad guys who try to steal Christmas from Caraway Street. There's a great message to it, packed in with a lot of humor and featuring the Caraway puppets. Anyone want to guess who the three bad guys are? You won't want to miss this, it will be performed in the December 23rd worship service at Bible Fellowship.

Maybe we'll even have snow!

Fessing up about Sandy

[Amidst all this silliness on my blog, let me say quite seriously that my thoughts and prayers are with those suffering in the Northeast. It appears that the storm was absolutely devastating up there, and it's no laughing matter. These posts are not intended to capitalize on the suffering of others. My mom was exceedingly blessed to have been spared the ravages of this storm, and I am truly thankful. These posts are intended as whimsical, humorous accounts of Doris and my weekend in Virginia, and in no way should be interpreted as callous to the suffering of others.]

True confessions: this trip east never was about Sandy. At least, not until Sandy made it all about Sandy. You see, mom's old HP laptop had gotten kind of slow, barnacle-encrusted, weedy. So, mom asked the kids to select and install a new laptop for her. I was elected the chief laptop setter-upper by my siblings. Consequently, this trip was on the calendar long before Sandy was a butterfly's breath.

As it happens, I just got lucky. Sandy happened to visit the same weekend I did; thus, we got to see one another (from afar, as it turned out).

My big sister says that I am a bad-weather magnet, that I just draw it to me. If that's the case, my bad weather magnet got degaussed last winter. Perhaps I've been "re-gaussed" this winter [is that a word?].

Sandy never did live up to her billing, at least not in Lancaster County, Virginia. Tuesday was a gray, rainy day, little bit of wind, certainly nothing exciting. We took mom out to lunch at Willaby's on the Rappahannock and enjoyed some great seafood.

I finished up the laptop install, and last night said our goodbyes to Rosy the mop dog

This morning we pulled out of Broad Reach about 5:30 AM. It's a long drive anyway, and we weren't sure what we'd find in West Virginia.

I love the drive from Charlottesville west, on Interstate 64 and a short portion on 81. This was just one of the beautiful views from the highway.

As I said, we weren't sure what we'd find in West Virginia. We found snow. It snowed for several hours as we drove through, but it didn't cause any problems for us.

Thankfully the roads themselves were in good shape. Temperature never got below 31 during our drive. We stopped for lunch in Beckley, West Virginia.

So the great Sandy adventure is over, and, for the Cobb clan anyway, all is well. Thank You, Lord.

Parting thoughts: enjoying snow is like eating peanuts. You always want a little more. Just think: snow in October! What wonders does the winter hold in store? Yahoo!

Greenville owes me. . .

I am READY, baby! For snow, that is. Got me a new snow shovel. Got scrapers for the cars, and de-icing washer fluid. Got a pair of stretch-on crampons for my boots, to keep me from skating down my steep driveway (I could put a ski-lift on my driveway and live off the income, it’s that steep; it's the sort of thing that helicopters will drop snowboarders off on the top; okay, that might be a slight exaggeration).

Woke up my snow-blower from it’s long summer nap, fired it up, make sure I don’t have to yank my arm off when I really need that sucker to start.

Got two 50 lb. bags of ice-melt from Walmart. Get ‘em now before prices go up, only $7.49 per bag.

On second thought, don’t get ‘em. There’s no way on God’s green earth we’ll get measurable snow-fall this winter; not when I’m all ready for it.

Probably be, maybe, 70 degrees in January. Nuts. Wish I’d thought of that first. Ought to take all this stuff back to the store, but it’s too late now.

Gonna have a warm winter, Greenville. You owe me. . .