Scattered Thoughts . . .

I really enjoy astronomy and viewing the night sky but, damn, I live in Waterbury.  Most of the state could be clear and sunny but if you drive down in between Stowe, Sugarbush and Bolton Resorts... down into Waterbury... we are almost always covered in clouds and, usually, there is some sort of precipitation falling from those clouds. This description of Waterbury reminds me of Harry Connick Jr's "Bluesville" in The Happy Elf.  The clear skies are rather brief. I honestly don't think that Seattle has anything on Waterbury as far as overcast and wet days go.  I've lived here for about 23 years now and my first few years made it obvious that Waterbury was aptly named 'Water'bury for a reason. I keep saying that I'm going to track and record climate conditions daily in Waterbury for a solid year just to see how it differs from the rest of Vermont and, especially, how it compares to Seattle. Naturally, I haven't done it yet. Perhaps I've been

This has been a very strange winter. After a little bit of snow the other night, last night the temperature warmed up into the 40s and we had driving, pouring rain all night long. The rain was coming down so hard that it kept me awake most of the night.  Why would rain keep me awake? The back section of our house is covered with a tarp because the roof needs to be replaced... roofing joists as well as the roofing material. It is in bad shape requiring demolition and rebuilding. My health has not really been well enough to tackle this enormous project so we are just waiting for my health and the weather to be in sync so we can repair/rebuild this section of the house. In the meantime, whenever we have heavy rain or heavy snow, I am constantly expecting the worst. As Sheila drove to work this morning, she noticed flooding in all the fields. Actually, the National Weather Service had issued a flash flood warning and the flood stage was in the "Action" stage. Common sense

This morning we awoke to some snow on the ground which is highly unusual this winter. There was only an inch or two of snow out there but it was nice seeing everything covered in fresh snow for a change. Other than quite a few patches of very slick ice, our landscape has been far from winter white! By 8am, the snow had turned to sleet and, unfortunately, it is raining out there now. Actually, it is pouring rain out there now... 32 degrees and pouring rain... fun.  While everything was clean and white outside, I decided to grab a camera and shoot some photos out our living room window. I limited myself to using my longest lens (just like yesterday while I attempted to get my first bird photo of this year) but I used a different camera body than yesterday. I chose another old, cheap camera (freebies because they are so old) just like yesterday but this one is so tiny it is difficult to hold steadily. I managed to capture a few decent photos though. I think it is supposed to cont

I spent the day, yesterday, cleaning and waxing the kayaks and our Minifish sailboat. It never fails... if you wax something, it will rain. Before we even made it to bed last night, heavy rain and thunderstorms began and continued through the night.  Fortunately, as the first few drops splattered on the pavement, I quickly found room for the mast, boom and sail in the shed. I didn't think they would fit in our relatively small shed but I somehow managed to get them in there! I definitely didn't want that sail getting dirty again before we even had a chance to sail nor did I want to have a lightning rod in the form of a sailboat sitting in our yard next to our bedroom. On the positive side... It appears as though I did a good job with my cleaning and waxing... the white sailboat is still clean and is only covered in crystal clear beads of water. That really is a nice sight! Today is a day of laundry... mostly... while the washing machine is doing its thing, I will be cle