A breath of fresh air

It has been humid and yet oxymoronically dry here for the last few weeks. It goes without saying that July in Georgia is hot. We saw the stories about the incursion of cool, northern air into the United States all over the national news for the last few days, but we wondered if it would mean anything for us.

Late Tuesday afternoon the dark clouds gathered and it began to thunder somewhere on the other side of the mountain.

threatening skies

Ragged clouds scudded across the sky.

dark clouds

And then it began to rain.

A tenth of an inch later, it was over.

We looked at the weather radar and figured that it was all hype, as usual. Later Tuesday night we got another third of an inch, so we totaled nearly a half an inch. It’s not much, but we’ll take it.

Wednesday morning dawned cool and clear. The rain failed to show, but the cold front was real, and it was here. The sky was dark blue with a few fair-weather cumulus clouds, the temperature was in the low 60s and the humidity had been chased south. The atmosphere had been stagnant, humid, filled with dust, smoke and chemicals that the sunlight and humidity turned into haze. It was not serious, just the usual summer conditions. The air the cold front brought in was fresh and still clean and clear enough that Kennesaw Mountain, probably 45 to 50 miles to the southeast of us, was visible on the horizon.

There it is, Kennesaw Mountain, right under the arrow

There it is, Kennesaw Mountain, right under the arrow

It felt great on the morning dog walk. In fact, I was just a little cool when I started out. We walked down into Texas Valley, which is the shady side of the mountain. I eventually warmed up enough to break a sweat, but it was nothing like Tuesday morning, when I got back home and had to change my shirt because it was so sweaty.

It was a little bit of fall in the middle of July. It won’t last long. The air might be from Canada, but the sun is still all Georgia. We’ll enjoy it while it lasts. It’s supposed to be even cooler Wednesday night.

The cold and the deer

When I was a little boy, there was a gardenia right outside our kitchen window. Since we didn’t have air conditioning, in warm weather we opened the window while we ate. When the gardenia was in bloom, its strong smell drifted into the house. I think it was probably about six feet tall, but that was a long time ago, and I was small so it might not have been that tall. Fairly frequently in those days we had winters cold enough to kill it back to the ground.

When we were looking for plants for our house, Leah and I chose some gardenias. We planted two dwarf and one variegated gardenia right beside the driveway in what we call our island. The dwarf gardenias have grown well and usually have a lot of flowers. The variegated gardenia was grown reasonably well, but has only had a handful of blooms. We like it mainly for its green and yellow leaves. The gardenias have been there for nearly nine years, and never suffered any cold damage, or at least none to speak of, but this winter has been different. The variegated gardenia is completely brown.

Variegated gardenia

Variegated gardenia. The leaves should be yellow and green

The dwarf gardenias suffered less cold damage, but they are pretty ugly right now.

Dwarf gardenias, pruned back

Dwarf gardenias, pruned back

I pruned back some of the worst parts of the dwarf gardenias, but I was afraid to cut any of the variegated variety. I think the dwarf gardenias will come back OK, but I’m not sure at all about the variegated gardenia. Its branches are still green, but it has no foliage at all now. If it doesn’t sprout new leaves this spring, I may have to cut it back drastically, assuming it even survives.

I don’t know exactly what our lowest temperature has been this winter, but it has been at least in the lower teens or upper single digits. Rome’s official lowest temperature for this winter was 0F.

Some of our plants didn’t have enough foliage to worry about cold damage. The deer made sure of that. These plants (I don’t remember what the one in the foreground is, but there is a variegated privet bush behind it, and one more like it behind that, as well as a couple of puny azaleas) are evergreens and a couple of months ago were entirely covered with green foliage. The deer have stripped all of them.

deerfood

The taller shrub in the left center background is a loropetalum. It is essentially all brown now, as are two large loropetalums at the side of the house. The deer apparently don’t like loropetalum.

I have seen the culprits several time around the house and in our neighbors’ yards. Zeke has noticed them, too. I imagine that if Zeke lived outside, he would have kept the deer away.

So with cold and deer, most of our shrubs are in a pretty pitiful state. At least the daffodils will be blooming soon.

daffodils

The crocuses have already bloomed, so at least we’ll have some color other than brown for the last month of winter.

crocus

The last of the storm

When you wake up in the morning and the first question you hear is, “What happened to the clock,” it’s not a good sign.

It had continued to snow Wednesday night, and by early Thursday morning, the top of Lavender Mountain was a winter wonderland. A quiet, dark winter wonderland. We lost power sometime during the night. We were one of many all over Rome and the surrounding area.

I measured seven inches of ice and snow on the deck railing. Everything in sight was covered by snow, including the roads. The pines were all sagging and several had simply snapped. One in our leach field had broken at the base. Fouche Gap Road was blocked going down into Texas Valley, and would have been blocked on the town side if someone had not used a chain saw to clear a downed pine.

As bad as it was, it could have been much worse. A little more snow, a little more ice, and it’s likely there would have been many more outages and a lot more trees down. According to the Atlanta TV stations, about a million people lost power, from Atlanta east towards Augusta. A fairly large number were still without power Friday afternoon.

We have a generator, so we could keep track of what was going on 70 miles away in Atlanta, but not, of course, what was happening down the road in Rome. The generator let us keep the refrigerator and freezer going. I don’t have the 220-volt well pump set up to run off the generator, so a long-term power outage would be a problem for us. Around mid-afternoon we were making plans to go to my mother’s house to fill up water containers when the power came back on. It was a pleasant surprise. There are only 10 houses on top of the mountain; that’s not a lot compared to the many neighborhoods without power all around us.

All in all, we didn’t have much to complain about. It was very beautiful while it lasted.

I walked Zeke partway down Fouche Gap into Texas Valley, far enough to see the big pine across the road. The son of one of our neighbors managed to get the left side of his four-wheel-drive into a ditch, and we weren’t sure he was going to get out. He did, but the big pine a little further down stopped him. He walked the rest of the way down the mountain to his home.

Thursday evening we drove down into town to have dinner. The roads at the bottom of the mountain were completely clear and there was almost no snow anywhere except in deep shade. It was a different world from up on top of the mountain.

By Friday morning, most of the snow was gone up here. The roads were clear, almost all the snow had melted off the trees, and the only snow on the ground was in the shade. We’re running short of firewood, but I found some more old, dead cedars and a couple of smallish, dead trees that I think are black locust. So we’re set for some more cold weather, but right now at 8 PM it’s 43 degrees and rain is falling. Our storm is over.

Here are a few pictures I took Thursday morning before the melt began. This is the view down our driveway.

driveway

This is looking towards the woods at the back of the house.

back_yardThis is on Fouche Gap Road looking towards Texas Valley.

down to texas valleyThis is the pine that stopped our neighbors’ son on his way down into Texas Valley. that’s Zeke’s rear end. This is the more northerly side of the mountain, so it stayed snowier longer than the road leading down to Huffaker Road and town.

downed pine

Winter Storm: Day 2

Wednesday morning was the intermission between Act I and Act II of our winter storm. The headlines and the Atlanta TV stations were calling it a catastrophic storm, and it may actually be that. According to the news, a lot of people lost power. The Atlanta TV stations have concentrated on the interstates inside the city, so all we know about what’s going on in Rome is what we can see from our deck, and that’s not much.

The temperature hovered around freezing all day. When I walked Zeke around 10 AM, there was a light mist falling. There was about 1/16 inch of ice on the trees and a little slush here and there on the road. At the bottom of the mountain there was no ice on the road and little ice on the trees. The light precipitation (freezing rain, sleet or possibly grauple) continued all day, and by late afternoon there was about a quarter inch of ice on virtually every surface. The trees were beginning to droop. Apparently a quarter inch of ice is enough to interfere with the signal for satellite television. I had to pour hot water on the dish to get a signal.

By about 7 PM, when I was getting ready to take the dogs back out, Leah said it was snowing again. And it was snowing lightly. All the ice, slush, and melted and refrozen snow were covered by about an inch of new snow. Everything was white, including the roads. Unfortunately, the new snow was making the tree limbs sag even more. As of 9:30, there was still light snow, enough to soften the footprint I made when I took the dogs out an hour and a half earlier. I have to admit, a completely snow-covered scene like that is pretty.

Icicles formed on the roof overhang early in the day. They have continued to grow.

icicles

This is our front walk. It’s elevated, so it cools quickly. The first snow shoveled off fairly easily. Then the freezing rain during the day made it so slippery I went in and out through the garage. Now the snow has made the footing safer, at least temporarily.

snow on front walk

It will be interesting to see if the next wave gives us more snow by morning.

The low tonight is supposed to be around 30. It’s supposed to clear by Thursday afternoon and reach the 40s. And then it will be over.

Winter storm: Day 1

We’re in the middle of a winter storm here in Georgia. The first wave hit Monday night. When we woke up Tuesday morning, there was snow on the ground and it was still coming down. By around 10 AM there was three and a half inches on cold surfaces. This was the view out of our bathroom window.

out the window

I took the dogs on a walk around the house as usual. Later I took Zeke for his regular walk down Fouche Gap Road. Lucy is too sensitive to cold, so I left her at home. On the streets up on the mountain there was a layer of snow over a layer of slushy ice.

I made Zeke wear his winter coat.

zeke on the snow

It stopped snowing around noon. The temperature rose a little and just reached freezing by afternoon. The roads on the mountain were essentially free of snow by mid afternoon. There was an interesting dynamic at work on the roads. The roads were above freezing when it started snowing, so the snow melted as it hit the surface. Enough snow fell that the melted snow formed slush. By afternoon, there was enough solar heating, despite the total cloud cover, that the snow mostly disappeared. But by then, it had been cold enough for long enough that the slush was freezing. As I write this at 8 PM Tuesday, the temperature has actually risen to just above freezing, but I think by Wednesday morning the slush on the roads will be solid up here on the mountain. But that will be OK. I’m retired now, so I don’t have to worry about getting stuck in Huntsville.

Forecasts call for a severe ice storm with the northern boundary just south of us. We may get more snow, but it looks like the worst of the ice will miss us. That’s good. If the area south of here gets as much ice as they call for, things could get very ugly. The last time there was a really bad ice storm here was back in the early ‘60s, and we were without power for about a week because of downed power lines.

I don’t think we’ll lose our power, but just in case, I was able to find some more oak for firewood. It’s a little green, but the aged cedar I cut up a few days ago burns so well that it helps the oak.

wood burning stove

We’ll see what we see when we look out the window Wednesday morning.