Ironically, this weekend we had freaky weather, so right when I was planning to post something old about the first freeze of the season, we got this last late freeze or almost freeze. It is not supposed to be cold like this in April. We are supposed to have flash floods and crap like that to deal with, but not near freezing weather. I heard that this might happen about a week ago when I was putting out tomato plants and pepper plants, but I stopped after the first two. The other ten plants are safely on top of the washing machine, and I will plant them later today or tomorrow when it is safe.
Yesterday I went to ceramics class and finished staining the terra cotta plate and underglazing the mosaic tile piece. And the terra cotta plate actually got finished in time to get loaded into the kiln yesterday, so I should have a finished piece to take home Monday or Tuesday.
The mosaic tile got glazed while it was still green. Doesn't seem like a good idea to me, but the instructor wants us to try it that way. Anyway, I finished the underglaze yesterday, and he said to go ahead and spray glaze on it. Since we are doing this step before the tile is completely dry, the glaze did not dry as quickly as I had hoped. He said to use the paint dryer, which I don't like to do anyway, but the tile was too wet to touch so I had to do something. Except that some little brown specks came out of the dryer, so I turned it off. After that I tried to get the thing to dry by waving a fan in front of it. I ended up staying an hour late. Lucky for me he was still loading the kiln or I would have had to leave before that.
Yesterday, we actually had a few snow flurries. It didn't stick, but a couple of times we looked out the window and it was pretty. Most of the day you actually had to be outside to notice the snow, but a few times it was heavy enough to see it falling. It is just an odd thing to see anyway, but I don't think I've ever seen it in April before.
(The following was originally posted on another blog on December 1st.)
As predicted, we did not do the whole Clean Sweep thing yesterday, so the house is still a mess. We did not even do one room. We did very little except watch TV.
For about a week the TV weather people had been warning us about the first freeze of the year. It was coming. Do something. Bring in your pets, cover your plants, wrap your exposed pipes, etc.... That was on the TV Wednesday night when I fell asleep, and it was still on TV the next morning when I woke up. So I poked my head out the door to see what all the fuss was about.
And it didn't look bad at all.
It had rained the night before, but the ground was just wet, not frozen. The temperature was just at thirty-two degrees, but it didn't seem to have done any damage. Not at all what I had expected to see with all the school closings and all. But, there could be patches of ice elsewhere in the Metroplex. It's not like the whole area has exactly the same temperature and conditions.
Still, it was cold, and my plan for the day was to stay inside and eat soup and drink hot chocolate.
But there is always something that changes the plan. Like I forgot that at least one of us had to go out and drop off a package. There is almost always that. And as long as we are going to go outside anyway, we might as well go out and have lunch.
Strange, but it got colder. That rarely happens. The rain and such can happen anytime, but the actual drop in temperature usually gets to the low point during the night or very early morning. So when one would think that it should be warming up, it actually dropped a few more degrees and was only twenty-eight when we went out. And by then there was sleet or freezing rain or something. Still, it doesn't seem to be sticking to the road, so it was mostly safe to drive on except over bridges. So it was safe to go to lunch.
Later, after we were safe at home, there was white stuff falling. But it didn't look like snow at all. I mean, it sort of looked like snow until you got a closer look, cause if you picked it up it didn't stick together like snow, and it wasn't soft and fluffy like snow. It was more like big grains of sand or little tiny glass beads. Then later, it did snow. So there was three layers of different stuff on the ground, but not enough of any of it to cover the grass. And now it's totally gone, except for a few patches here and there in the shadows.
Now, we rarely get a nice normal snowfall, but that was weird even for here.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Texas has snow in April, that is pretty odd. Do people in Texas treat it as a novelty? I have a friend who moved to Arizona and witnessed people being almost happy about snow. Weird!
You saw what Northern Ohio looked like over my place, but this is not too unusual. The only unusual part is that our April snow this year is not that cutesy stuff, but rather sustained over the course of the last 4 days. This is like actual winter snow.
Score one for procrastination: those asparagus we bought still have not been planted. If we had planted them, I suppose they would have been killed by this freeze.
Instead, we decided to travel in the blizzards.
Snow is not a novelty to everyone in the whole state. I grew up in Wichita Falls, about two hours north of where I live now. We had snow there. Not just tons of it, but enough that we went out and made a snowman three or four times a year.
Here, it will snow a bit, but it usually doesn't stick. It melts as soon as it touches the ground. Or sometimes it will snow, but not enough to cover the ground. And then when it covers the ground, most of it is gone a day later. So when it snows we'll all go out and look at it as soon as we can, cause it might not be there later.
Once in a while there is ice. We close schools and such at the first sign of ice. But usually that is gone in a day or two. A lot of us are still expected to go to work, but the kids aren't expected to go to school. Which means if you work at an arcade or a movie theater or someplace where kids hang out, you'd better get your butt to work, cause the kids who can't be allowed to risk their lives to go to school will risk their lives to get to the mall.
I should take a ceramics class again, I really loved working with clay. My brother took me to a shop in Arizona several years ago where you could pick out a clay piece, paint it and then they'd fire it up for you. Now they have those shops all over the place, but I haven't been to one since.
Reading about the ceramics class has sparked some interest in me as well, and I probably have done nothing like this since 4th grade. Maybe I'll take one of those "community enrichment" or arts center ceramics classes that only lasts just a few weeks. But not this year.
I am artistically challenged. Anything that has to do with painting, creating, drawing, sewing, or manipulating (like clay) I totally suck at.
I am musically inclined but trying to do anything artsy with my hands is a complete and utter failure.
Except for my string art sailboat in 6th grade. That was pretty decent.
Post a Comment