Bobcat snow

Ahh, majestic creatures, bobcats.


source: Ohio DNR

< auditory screech >

But wait.
Don't you live in the suburbs?

Actually, yes.
And it snowed enough that our screen porch is snowy.

And our Bobcats, as it turns out, actually are in the neighborhood to do sewer work.

Which they can't do when there's 5" of white stuff (more manna!) on the ground.
(Could be worse. We were in the 5-12" stripe of the forecast.)

So the gents, who actually hail from south Georgia, have made themselves available for private snow removal.

Coming from a driveway that is exactly one car length long and two car widths wide to a heck of a driveway, we took them up on it.


Sure beats using a dustpan.

Oh, you're moving south -- it'll be warm there.

 Oh, you're moving south -- it'll be warm there.

THEY LIED.

Yes, it's warmer than Harrisburg PA (at this moment, 32F here vs 25F there, and generally 10-15F warmer), but there are drawbacks, mostly in human preparedness.  There is enough salt currently spread on sidewalks and streets all through the Triad that walking around literally crunches.  And yet, I know for a fact that there are households that park right along the street's edge of their driveways instead of in lovely covered garages (so glad we have a garage!) because they have no shovels.  In fact, on the late-night news, the poor reporter who drew the "you're outdoors in the snow" short straw is saying that if you don't have an actual shovel, try a broom, or a dustpan.  And if you don't have an ice scraper for your car, there's always a kitchen spatula.

Disney characters shadowbox at the mall

Oh My Disney, indeed -- details at link

So cute and little!

At HIA's open house (these pics are from 2013), we got some closeups with the plows.


Granted, these are the heavy-duty runway plows, but even the plows that do the side streets use one swipe for a lane of traffic. On highways, sometimes you see them drive in diagonal formation so snow plowed by one truck is systematically pushed to the next truck doing the next lane.

---

But now we live in NC.
And things are different here.

Hours later, closer to sundown than sunup (Spoiled because Selah and Gaude were both on main roads. Even my parents' house is on a through street.), we heard scraping, and sure enough, here comes the calvary.

Maybe?

It's a Bobcat.

And its slightly more sizable friend.

Does that even have a plow? Oh wait, the plow is directly underneath the driver. What!?

They went back and forth, forth and back, possibly a dozen times for our side street.
There is an inch of accumulation out there.

Welcome to the south, my friend.

90's pop

Big Frog, trying to figure out a personalized license plate: It says N...K...?
me, having glanced at it: It's New Kids on the Block. Clearly you weren't a girl in the 90's.

That's probably a good thing for all of us.

White stuff?

Big Frog: What's this white stuff falling from the sky?
me: I don't know... what to do?  I'm a southerner now!
Big Frog:  Maybe it's manna!
me:  Manna?  What is it?*

:-)



The neighbor kids were go-karting up and down the street. Might be as close as they ever get to snowmobiling around here.

*(Manna, from Exodus 16:11-15, is a transliteration of "what is it?")

"I will sing tall!"

In our director's continuing attempts to make us sing more like Julia Child, or with a British accent, or with round tones, rather than with exaggerated southern accents, today's entreaty was,

Sing tall!

Fern Hill

This May, the Kerner Chorale is doing, among other things, Fern Hill by Corigliano, performed here by Kansas City Chorale.