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disturbing signs that the weather is really not right this year
I have already mentioned what a mild winter we have been having--while we got our first snow in November this winter we had naught but alternating freeze-thaw cycles for the rest of November and all of December. We got snow in between the thaws, but not much. The in-between freezes were hard enough to stabilize the firm crust that the snow became, so that when I got home after the conference earlier this month the world was properly white, but where were the huge piles of snow that should be here? January managed to keep decent temperatures--between -15 and -35 mostly, so no more melting, but also pretty much no new snow. A few times we got a millimeter or three accumulation, but the only two days in January that I touched the snow shovel were the 1st and the 31st, and neither occasion took more than 5 minutes of my time.
This has translated into my being able to walk anywhere I feel like walking in my yard, in the forest, or on the (thankfully finally frozen) water between here and the nature reserve, without resorting to huge levels of effort like last January's adventure. However, honestly, I would rather have the snow. I have skis I am not bothering to use, because I just don't need them. But the weirdest thing of all was looking out my kitchen window yesterday and noticing that one of the neighbour's trees already thinks it is spring! That tree has put out enough tiny budlets to make it look pale yellowish green from here, and it didn't look like that a week ago. This is scarily early--the trees shouldn't be showing the early signs of waking before mid to late March. I hope that it is mistaken and that we still have some decent winter left, and perhaps even some real snow. We did get a few centimeters yesterday, which was nice, but still nothing compared to what we should have. Last winter our walkway had berms a meter high bordering it. This last snowfall brought the total berm along our walkway to a whopping elevation of 10 centimeters. Weird, I tell you.
Another disturbing/weird thing in my life is that I seem to have gotten clumsy all of the sudden. I noticed it last week when I dropped a jar of lotion I had just picked up, and I was very relived when the glass didn't break (note: I dropped it before opening it and getting any lotion on my hands, so I can't blame slipperiness). Several other times that day I noticed myself dropping stuff, none of which was breakable, but it was kind of annoying. Then, on Sunday, I had that same lotion jar in my hands, reached for the lid with my right hand to put it back on, and suddenly the jar was no longer in my left hand, but smashing against the floor, glass shards everywhere. While I could blame the lotion in this case, I still can't, because I got it out of the jar with my right hand, put it on my knee with that hand, touched nothing else except the lid, which I did not drop. There was no lotion on the hand which failed to hold the jar. Again, later in the day I noticed things dropping that weren't breakable. Today I managed to drop, and not break, the replacement jar of lotion, even though I had it in my mind that I should be careful. This is a disturbing trend, I am not used to dropping things at all, let alone so often in short succession, and I mention it here as a record, on the off chance that it is a symptom of some problem I haven't noticed yet (like, say, aging, while I feel like I am only in my 20's the calender disagrees).
On the work front we are drawing to a close with all of the cross sections I have been doing, and I hope to return to writing soon. My Master's student is busy doing stuff and will be collecting his samples (without help from me, though I shared some of my thoughts on things to keep in mind while doing it) this week, and my GIS class meets again tomorrow. I have emailed the Swedish Teacher who did last week's diagnostic test to ask if she knows yet which course I will be assigned to and when it meets, because I don't want to be booking meetings with students until I know what my schedule looks like. I also apologized for being in a hurry and writing in English.
This has translated into my being able to walk anywhere I feel like walking in my yard, in the forest, or on the (thankfully finally frozen) water between here and the nature reserve, without resorting to huge levels of effort like last January's adventure. However, honestly, I would rather have the snow. I have skis I am not bothering to use, because I just don't need them. But the weirdest thing of all was looking out my kitchen window yesterday and noticing that one of the neighbour's trees already thinks it is spring! That tree has put out enough tiny budlets to make it look pale yellowish green from here, and it didn't look like that a week ago. This is scarily early--the trees shouldn't be showing the early signs of waking before mid to late March. I hope that it is mistaken and that we still have some decent winter left, and perhaps even some real snow. We did get a few centimeters yesterday, which was nice, but still nothing compared to what we should have. Last winter our walkway had berms a meter high bordering it. This last snowfall brought the total berm along our walkway to a whopping elevation of 10 centimeters. Weird, I tell you.
Another disturbing/weird thing in my life is that I seem to have gotten clumsy all of the sudden. I noticed it last week when I dropped a jar of lotion I had just picked up, and I was very relived when the glass didn't break (note: I dropped it before opening it and getting any lotion on my hands, so I can't blame slipperiness). Several other times that day I noticed myself dropping stuff, none of which was breakable, but it was kind of annoying. Then, on Sunday, I had that same lotion jar in my hands, reached for the lid with my right hand to put it back on, and suddenly the jar was no longer in my left hand, but smashing against the floor, glass shards everywhere. While I could blame the lotion in this case, I still can't, because I got it out of the jar with my right hand, put it on my knee with that hand, touched nothing else except the lid, which I did not drop. There was no lotion on the hand which failed to hold the jar. Again, later in the day I noticed things dropping that weren't breakable. Today I managed to drop, and not break, the replacement jar of lotion, even though I had it in my mind that I should be careful. This is a disturbing trend, I am not used to dropping things at all, let alone so often in short succession, and I mention it here as a record, on the off chance that it is a symptom of some problem I haven't noticed yet (like, say, aging, while I feel like I am only in my 20's the calender disagrees).
On the work front we are drawing to a close with all of the cross sections I have been doing, and I hope to return to writing soon. My Master's student is busy doing stuff and will be collecting his samples (without help from me, though I shared some of my thoughts on things to keep in mind while doing it) this week, and my GIS class meets again tomorrow. I have emailed the Swedish Teacher who did last week's diagnostic test to ask if she knows yet which course I will be assigned to and when it meets, because I don't want to be booking meetings with students until I know what my schedule looks like. I also apologized for being in a hurry and writing in English.
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