Blizzard!

Oh my goodness!
What a snowstorm we had! Was it officially a blizzard? I don’t know. I heard something on the news (but I only ever half listen — usually because I’m doing something else) that said a blizzard isn’t defined just as a huge amount of snow.

A blizzard is a storm with ‘considerable falling or blowing snow” and winds in excess of 35 mph and visibilities of less than ¼ mile for at least 3 hours, according to the website Live Science, the first website I checked out. I went on to read the short article. When all the blizzard conditions are expected, the National Weather Service will issue a ‘blizzard warning.’ When just two of the three are expected, a ‘winter storm warning’ or ‘heavy snow warning’ may be issued. 
Where did the term ‘blizzard’ come from?
It had been used to describe a canon shot or a volley of musket fire. It first showed up to describe a snowstorm in an Iowa newspaper in the 1870’s, according to the weather service. 
Hmmm. I decided to get my information straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak, and I went over to the NOAA website (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). Their definition of blizzard is this: A blizzard means that the following conditions are expected to prevail for a period of 3 hours or longer. 

• Sustained wind or frequent gusts to 35 miles an hour or greater; and
• Considerable falling and/or blowing snow (i.e., reducing visibility to less than a ¼ mile)

Okay, so if I’m understanding this correctly, it’s saying that you can have a lot of snow but it won’t be considered a blizzard unless it affects visibility and lasts for 3 hours or longer.
And that brings us back to the beginning. I don’t know if this record-breaking snowfall was officially classified as a blizzard or not but I do know that it snowed for over 12 hours straight.

Mike took me out for a short ride to take a few pictures. This shot of my neighbors mailbox is one of my favorites.
“Why?” you ask.
Because, even being sheltered by the tree, there’s still a lot of snow on top of his mailbox.

Another neighbor, Lemar, was out early with his snow blower. Even though it was still snowing, he was trying to get ahead of it.

“Do they plow an open grate bridge?” I asked Mike.
“No,” he answered. “It would damage the bridge, the plow, or both. The snow’ll fall through the grates anyway.”
The next day, the day after the record-setting single-day snow accumulation, Mike and I went for another ride. The wind was blowing the snow back on the roads after the plows had gone through,

and our bridge over the Susquehanna River had a lot of snow on it.

I posted these pictures and more on my Facebook page and I sent them to my mother and oldest sister on the email. But there are still a few people who wouldn’t get to see them if I didn’t include them here, in this letter blog.
It’s hard to believe that a few days before the snowstorm to end all snowstorms, I saw my very first flower of the season.

“Peg! That’s not a flower! That’s a weed!” you say.
I consider dandelions a wildflower and a welcoming site after having only having winter flowers to take pictures of for the past — I don’t know, four months?

How about some dandelion facts? I know you want it, so here it is.
The dandelion is the only flower that represents the 3 celestial bodies of the sun, moon, and stars. The yellow flower resembles the sun, the puff ball resembles the moon and the dispersing seeds resemble the stars.
“Peg, that’s a bit of a reach,” you say.
I thought it was cute, but let’s go on.
The dandelion flower opens to greet the morning and closes in the evening to go to sleep.
Every part of the dandelion is useful: root, leaves, flower. It can be used for food, medicine and dye for coloring.
Up until the 1800’s people would pull grass out of their lawns to make room for dandelions and other useful ‘weeds’ like chickweed, malva and chamomile.
The average American recognizes thousands of logos for commercial products, yet recognizes fewer than five plants that grow in their area. Dandelions are most likely one of those familiar plants.
The name dandelion is taken from the French word “dent de lion” meaning lion’s tooth, referring to the coarsely-toothed leaves.
Dandelions have one of the longest flowering seasons of any plant.
Seeds are often carried as many as 5 miles from their origin!
And a not so fun fact: Every year Americans spend millions on lawn pesticides to have uniform lawns of non-native grasses, and we use 30% of the country’s water supply to keep them green.
These fun facts came from the webpage my dandelion is a flower dot org.
Besides the little spot of sunshine that’s my dandelion photo, I have other photos from before the Blizzard of 2017 that I wanted to show you and talk about, so let’s do that, okay?
One morning, taking my little girls Itsy and Ginger out to do their business, I saw a bunch of fur on the ground in the yard. I thought it was a cat fight. Later, the Kipp’s stopped by on their morning walk. I went out to greet them and Lamar was checking out the fur.
“Cat fight,” I said to Rosie.
“That’s what Lamar and I were just talking about. He thinks it might be rabbit.”
Sometimes I think I know more than I really do —
I know right!  It’s a fault of mine and I’m working on it!
— and I dismissed the rabbit theory out of hand. I just hope I wasn’t rude because I don’t really remember what I said at the time.
The next day I look at the spot and Rosie’s words came back to me, Lamar thinks it might be rabbit. And I thought about it. I bet he’s right. When the Kipp’s stopped by that day, I brought it up to Rosie and told her I thought Lamar might be right. In hindsight, if I thought about things a little more first, I’d be a lot better off — and that’s something else I’m working on.
A full two days after the first sighting of fur in the yard, this shows up outside my door.
“What is it?” you ask.
It’s the back half of a full grown rabbit! I’m so proud of my mighty hunters even if I did have to pick up the remains and toss them out in the weeds.

A couple of days later I was out with the girls, coming back from the mailbox, when a rabbit takes off through the weeds. I saw him and Rascal saw him too and takes off after it. He didn’t get it but I’m glad my cats are hunting.

Speaking of cats, I’ve been trying to tame my three wild females. It’s kind of hard to do when they run from me every time they see me. For the last few weeks every time I go in the cat room, I block the cat flap, thereby keeping inside whoever’s already inside. Callie is almost always in there and she’s my buddy now. A lot of mornings Sugar would be in there too. Anon would only be there occasionally. By blocking the flap I force them to endure my presence. It didn’t take them long to accept that the flap would be locked while I was in there, whether I was feeding them, cleaning boxes, or just visiting, and they stopped trying to escape. Sometimes I’d just talk to them. Other times I’d pet them. And then I started to pick them up too. They didn’t like it but they didn’t scratch or bite me either.  In fact they’ve never scratched or bitten me and seldom ever hissed at me either. When I leave, I unblock the cat door and kick the flap so they know it’s open.
Wednesday was my litter box scoop day. Why is it that as soon as the box is clean, someone has to use it? A lot of times I’m not even out the door before one of them is in the box and I have to go back and scoop it again! But I’ll tell you what! Little Feisty takes the cake! There I was, this past Wednesday, right in the middle of scooping a box when Feisty jumps in and takes a big ole dookie right in front of me.
“Nice!” I tell her. It’s not like she didn’t have four other boxes to chose from and three of them were already clean! I waited and when she was finished she jumped out, not even bothering to cover it. And I’m left looking at some very unhealthy shit — literally! Her poo was very thin and shot through with blood.
Do you think she was trying to tell me something?

I knew someone had worms, I didn’t know which one, and I knew that come spring I’d have to worm them all. I guess Feisty gave me a wake-up call I couldn’t ignore anymore. After I finished with the boxes I washed my hands and got the worm medicine around. I took the bathroom scales out, blocked the cat flap, went in and weighed and wormed everyone I could get my hands on, which was everyone except Anon.
“Bathroom scales?” you wonder.
The dosage for the worm medicine is based on weight. I was nervous about holding Callie and Sugar long enough to weigh them but they didn’t fuss too much. Then I was worried about getting the medicine into them. I didn’t try to hold them, I just reached out, put my hand over their head, pressed on their jaws with my fingers and when they opened their mouth I jammed the syringe in, squirted the medicine and let go. I did it fast and it went amazingly smooth.
By Thursday I had it in my mind that the next time I caught all three wild girls in the cat room at the same time, I’d need to keep them in there. Monday the 20th is spay day and I had an appointment to get them spayed. I was afraid if I waited until the last minute I wouldn’t be able to get them.
Friday morning, I blocked the door and went in to feed them. Callie and Anon were in there. I couldn’t keep the door blocked or Sugar wouldn’t be able to get in so I put Anon in a kennel and trusted Callie would be there, she seldom leaves the cat room these days. When I left the cat room, Sugar was there, in the garage, but as soon as she saw me, she took off. I knew she’d go in the cat room as soon as it was quiet. I waited a while then went back to check, blocking the cat flap before I went in and she was in there.
On Friday I got Anon wormed. It is the first year I’ve ever been able to worm all of my cats. Anon is little, less than 5 pounds. She is also Smudge’s mother and I missed a shot of her looking out the bottom glass pane of the door to Smudge who was on the other side looking in. Dangnabbit!

Last month they wouldn’t spay Callie because of an upper respiratory infection and they sent me home with some meds. But she isn’t any better now than she was then. She has a runny nose but it’s clear, not all yellow and pusy. I’m afraid they won’t spay Callie this time either.

Sugar isn’t the prettiest girl with her coloring being what it is, but she has the cutest tail! It’s short! I don’t know if she lost the end of it somehow or if she was born this way.

Do you remember the turkey tracks from two weeks ago?

I’ve been so curious about that odd center toe that I’ve sent my photograph on to other people.
One of the websites that I stumbled on while I was researching it belongs to a woman named Kim who is a tracker.
Hmmmm. A tracker. She’d know, is what I thought, and I sent her this photograph.
“They look like turkey tracks,” Kim wrote me, “but that extra knob has me confused too. I’m not sure what it is. I’ve seen peacock tracks in my area and they have a huge inner ‘thumb’, but I don’t think they’re peacocks tracks. Do you mind if I post this photo to get input from other trackers?”
I gave her permission to do so and she sent me an invitation to the Facebook page that she hosts named Animals Don’t Cover Their Tracks: Animal Track Identification Help Group.
If a tracker doesn’t know, maybe the conservation department will know, was my next thought and the next person I sent it to was Kristie, a gal I’ve had a lot of interactions with over the past few years, from the Missouri Department of Conservation.
“Wild birds sometimes sustain an injury to their feet. This is commonly referred to as ‘bumblefoot,’ a disease of the bottom of the feet caused by any number of different types of bacteria. Birds have an amazing ability to heal their skin, but unfortunately it can end up encapsulating,” Kristie replied. She went on talk more about bumblefoot and ended her email with this. “Perhaps this is the track of a bird with an injured foot? Or perhaps some other species entirely? We mainly focus on Missouri species here.”
I smiled at the last sentence. I took that as polite way to say, “Maybe you should find someone there to help you?” I told Kristie that I thought turkeys were pretty much turkeys whether here or in Missouri. I thanked her for all of the help she’d given me though the years and told her I’d try to find someone here. And I did. I sent the same photograph to the PA Game Commission.
“Interesting. Yes, they appear to be turkey tracks — correct size. The extra knob on the center toe could likely be ice accumulation, especially if the flock walked through a wet area before this area,” came a reply from Mary Jo, a Wild Turkey Biologist from the PA Game Commission.
I checked back on the tracker page on Facebook and there are more than 20 replies to my ‘interesting’ photograph.
Some of them suggested bumblefoot, but someone else pointed out that it was too regular to be that. Bumblefoot would be more random.
Peacock or some exotic bird was also suggested but I don’t think we have peacocks here. I guess I should have mentioned my location when I sent the picture in.
And you get your share of smart-alecks too.
“Walking oak leaves…”
“It appears that one of the turkeys was able to fit a shoe on it’s foot…”
There’s one (or two!) in every bunch, isn’t there?
But the most plausible answer to this puzzling photo was amongst the comments. “I think the ‘bulbous thing on the middle toe’ comes from the relaxed foot as it lifted out of the track. The distinct clear shape is likely due to the condition of the snow,” SA Mansfield posted.
“It’s hard to visualize why or how a turkey would do that,” someone commented.
SA Mansfield tried again, “When the turkey goes to put its foot down the toes expand into what we see as a turkey track. However, when the turkey pulls its foot up in preparation for its next step the foot relaxes and the toes are drawn together.”
To me that explains perfectly why all of the tracks appear to have a center knob on them and we can put this conundrum to bed!

 <<<<<>>>>>

How about a peek at things I’ve made this week?
I generally keep the first thing of anything I make, for two reasons. First, it gives me a pattern and second, I tend to get better as I go. Imagine that. So I made two more bracelets of this style and they are almost the same, the beading is a little different. They are going to the same house so I thought it a good idea for the ladies to be able to tell them apart.

I crocheted a couple of new dishrags, which is a fun way to spend a night in front of the television.
I’ve shifted gears and moved to making a few crosses. I’m trying to come up with something that will withstand the abuse of being on the end of a keychain. I’m not sure this it. And what do you think of the size of these for a keychain fob? They’re just under 4 inches counting the top ring.

Let’s call this one done.