From Cold To Warm And Back To Cold

As usual, our days are flying by like a jet plane. And I have to hurry saying that nothing pleases me more than winter days flying by.  After an arctic blast from Christmas and all the way until January 10, we got enveloped by mild moist air from the south. What seemed like frozen to the depth of the center of the earth thawed within 2 days and turned into a quagmire-style squeachy ground, punishing any attempt of walking in regular shoes with wet feet. At least the snow disappeared completely. But mother nature doesn’t leave us any hopes towards an early spring. We woke to 50F this morning reaching almost 60F at noon, just to start a fast race to way below freezing in a couple of afternoon hours. By now, we are back to 19F and a windchill way below that. A sudden snow shower creating near white-out conditions, lasting only 10 minutes, below the same scene only minutes after. Since the mild spell was accompanied by tons of rain we basically had to remain inside the house. Dixie went for her little excursions while the rain took a break from pouring down on us. Speaking of rain, we also discovered we had a creek and a lake in our basement today. The water ran down along the concrete foundation gurgling through little cracks accumulating to about 4” of water. Ever since it had been arctic cold we had a space heater in the basement to protect our waterlines from freezing. Today, it was time to go rescue that heater from getting submerged by the flood. Good thing it had not been plugged in otherwise we would have had a short, since the extension cord plug-in was actually under water. Once we have summer and dry weather, I am facing a major digging into the depth of the ground along the foundation to create a drain for the surface water and to cover the outside with plastic against further water intrusion. Something to look forward to. NOT. Dixie is still putting on pound after pound and she has now reached the size of Molly, even though she is still not that heavy. She is eating almost 3 times as much as Molly did! Much to Bea’s aversion, I have allowed Dixie to be on my couch (and only mine) where she either curls up or stretches out for delightful napping, while I read a book.