LITTLE SNOW HERE!

AUTUMN/FALL HAS RUN IT COURSE.

Luckily, I do not live in Buffalo.  The good folk there are having a hard time.  A Winter's worth of snow in two days...unimaginable!  And now all that snow ( seven to ten feet of it) threatens flooding as it melts.

My daughter called me to ask if I was OK.  When she called I had no idea of what was going on to the NorthEast of me.  About an inch of snow overnight but the sun was out and the snow mostly melted when she called.  Up around the Lakes they get 'lake effect snow'.  This happens when there is a steady cold wind blowing from the NE across the relatively warmer water of the lakes.  As it does so, it picks up water vapour.  If it traverses at least 50 miles the moving air picks up enough such that, as it rises on reaching the shore and the higher ground beyond, given sufficiently cold conditions,  it dumps the moisture as snow.

If you draw a line on the map from the NE through Corning you will see that it will cross over the lakes region at the narrowest point (less than 50 miles across).  In this narrow band little snow falls. The result is that, despite getting very cold here, we get little snow.

How cold does it get in Corning?  Most mornings this last week or so the temperature outside on my rear deck is between 7 and 15 degrees F (-10  to -5 deg Cel), rising to about freezing or just above during the day but some sunny days sends it higher.

Usually, we do not get snow until after Thanksgiving, into December.  I suppose we can expect another long, bitter Winter.  This Fall I had snow stoppers fixed to my shiny, slippery steel roof.  Last Winter I go a little tired of shovelling wet-concrete-like snow that had avalanched from off the roof. Now the snow will remain on the roof and act like a blanket, helping to keep the house snug; and the snow shoveling work will be significantly less.

Last Winter's bitter cold and wind prevented my new trees from waking up in the belated Spring. Arbor Day foundation guarantees its trees for Fall planting.  They come through the mail and I was expecting the replacements any day.  This year I determined to plant them all in a more sheltered location.  Along my neighbor's fence, on the west side is quite protected from wind and gets the early sun.  In the Spring, they could be replanted to their proper places.

Most of you know that I make compost out of leaves and lawn cuttings.  Not having any mature trees as yet, I have to beg leaves from my neighbors.  They very kindly obliged me with bags of leaves.  This year I got ten or so bags...but what to do with them?  As I was digging the soil in preparation for the arrival of the new trees, a bright idea struck me.  Why not line up the bags of leaves along the trench running parallel to the fence.  This would make a cosy place for the young trees, protecting them from any wind from the East, would it not?  As you can see, this seems to have worked out very well.  I planted them the day after their arrival; it was warm and sunny.

The next day it snowed!

Since I have mentioned the composting, here is this year's pile (still in the frame) with remaining pile from last year just in front, nicely
surrounded by dark red leaves from my neighbor's Japanese maple.

Next week (first in December) I will be off to Costa Rica to have the work on my three new dental implants completed.  This entails removing the healing caps and attaching the abutments to which the crowns will be fixed.  This will be done on the Monday and the Friday, so I will at least two days midweek when I can go on some tours to see other places in Costa Rica, like the rain forests, jungle and volcanoes.  Also, I am looking forward to the wonderful fruit and the amazingly delicious food. There is virtually no 'factory food' in Costa Rica so everything tastes 'soo good'.  No wonder the Costa Ricans are among the happiest and long-lived people in the world.

So I am glad to report that I am safe and well.  And getting on with it!