My hopes of returning home to find daffodils poking their heads up in my garden have been cruelly dashed.
Taken on the last leg of the trip home yesterday, at various locations between “Saskatchewan’s Blizzard Capital” Kenaston and Delisle.
(Click on the thumbnails to open a full sized version.)
Someone with a liberal mind would say that that is because ‘global warming’ has ‘changed climate’ and made it colder this year.
However, someone with a brain would be just in observing: It’s cold and has been for months – and whatever happened to the theory of global warming?
All I know is, it is still freezing here in England too.
welcome home kate…
Peter: correction. It should read “Glow-ball Vorming has changed the climate BECAUSE OF GEORGE BUSH.”
There. That’s better.
/moonbat off
I refrain from gloating over the weather here then. Suffice to say the weather last weekend was absolutely fantastic. I drove from White Rock out to Mission and at times had a clear view of all the mountain ranges from the North Shore all the way around to south of Mt. Baker. Clear and warm all day.
If you’ve seen the weather recently in Texas; grass fires one day, flooding the next. Even GWB might start to believe in Global Warming.
Welcome home, Kate. Here in Moonbat central, home to many lotus eaters, our daffs are in full cry. We’ve been having late rains and the creek, true natives say “crick, is running nicely. I’ve put a couple of cubic feet of 70 degree sunshine in a FedEx box and will ship it to Delisle. I’m assuming that the town is small enough that simply addressing to “Kate” is enough. when you open the box the fragrance is the blooming Victorian Laurel that perfumes our town at this time of year.
Too bad you had to drive all that way. Here we simply click the heels of our red shoes together and say, “There’s no place like home.” I hear that next year you’ll be able to buy shoes that take you to Starbucks.
geezuz , thats cold lookin . here in medicine hat i got carnations ( i think ) poking up in front of my house. damn. i can hardly wait for the sandfies.
Mike…. might be safer if we don’t tell Kate that motorcycle season is already well under way out here (did it ever really end?).
Welcome home Kate. Hey, we had to ship that white stuff somewhere,and you weren’t home, so… ;o)
I belong to a Motorsports e-mail forum, and we have to be very careful not to upset the folks to the East of us by gloating over the weather too much. But, occasionally, it’s just too hard to refrain from telling all the folks the cold, snowy areas just how nice it is here. Of course, we keep our mouths firmly shut when the hillsides start coming down on top of everything, or the river floods, or it rains for 40 day and 40 nights.
Glad to see Kate and the Kanines home safe and sound.
Changing the subject slightly, if you’ve ever read Warren Kinsella’s blog, today would be a good day to look at it. He had a op-ed piece related to his recent trip to the U.S. that’s worth reading.
Mike
For anyone interested, here’s Kinsella’s site:
http://www.warrenkinsella.com/musings.htm
Mike
I’m willing to bet Candace left the wooden spoon in that drawer, Mike. I’m also willing to bet Kate knows how to wield one! Just a thought… ;o)
Nice pics, Kate.
Lots of snow everywhere, more than we’ve had in years. The only thing that worries me is the possibility of it melting all at once…Which can happen in this country.
From what I can see of it, the Dodge sure seems to be in nice shape for its age. Curious- I would thought you’d have painted the cap to match. 🙂
Welcome home.
Peter C Glover
It freezes in england?
I thought the only time england was freezing was in the summer…
I’ll take londons freezing 8 , 42% humidity over saskatoons balmy -5 & 63% humidity [almost the same as Winnipeg.]
🙂
saskatoon
http://www.theweathernetwork.com/weather/cities/can/Pages/CASK0276.htm
london
http://www.theweathernetwork.com/weather/cities/intl/Pages/UKXX0085.htm
Mike in White Rock
I went to the kinsella site someone who starts off saying the war is illegal because the comitee of dictators doesn’t merit my time.
WWII was illegal.
Warren would have let the Nazis keep firing their ovens til today with that attitude.
If nothing else fewer people are dying now than before the war though lefty MSM’s don’t like to talk about that.
Plus all the american dead don’t total the death toll from one day at the abortion clinics in the USA. people got to have some perspective.
The truck is starting to show her age now, but was in showroom condition when I bought it in 1999 – had only 100k or so on the odometer. Paid $5,000 and a few years later put a new engine in it. So, outside of the transmission, rear end and body parts, most everything else has been replaced in the last five years. It ran like a new vehicle all the way down to Charlotte and back. I bitch about the milage, but when you add up the monthly costs, including repairs, it’s still a bargain compared to going into debt for a newer one.
The cap was a last minute, second-hand purchase from a friend. It’s too old to spend time and money painting it.
Nice pics!
I know it’s spring cause my taxes are due.
Plus I’ve got new born calves on the ground.
(the pics remind me of the great movie “Fargo”)
Kate:
Thanks for the pictures. It puts things in perspective for those of us who whine about the rain ( I am not one of them, coming from winters like you have now, right in to late March and sometimes, snow in April)
Thanks for the pictures and including us in the experience of your trip to Charlotte and back.
The puppies are wonderful looking.
I like the term “Kate and the Kanines” someone above coined. … Glad you are home safe and sound. The snow looks wonderful shining and shimmering in the sun ( if you don’t have to drive in it! ) 🙂 Once it is on the ground and the plows have done their thing, it is a wonderful wonderland…. and somewhere under there thos daffs are just waiting to poke their heads through … soon.
DrWright: It’s curious. I had an American friend, who read past the first sentence (of course the war is illegal, but that’s not what he’s writing about) and my friends opinion was that the article or op-ed piece (or whatever you want to call it) was a well-balanced, well-written piece which fairly accurately describes the current mood in the United States.
Of course, we can all read these things and interpret them as we feel is correct. That’s what this blog, free speech and Canada are all about.
So, contrary to your view, I still think it was a worthwhile read. Sorry.
Mike in White Rock
I didn’t know Delisle was the blizzard capital, I thought Yellow Grass was. One year it stormed for three days and on the fourth day we had to tunnel through the snow to get to the barn. It had totally covered the chicken house. Some farmers from around Yellow Grass had a rope tied between their house and out buildings in the winter because if they got outside of the perimiter of their farms they were “goners”.
Sorry, this wasn’t to be a “in the good old days” just some debate about the blizzard capital of Saskatchewan.
We’ll send a Chinook your way.
Mike in white rock,
Kinsella is just parroting what the left wingers in the MSM are printing in the USA.
Who needs more of that?
IMHO, Kinsella is a pinhead AND a lawyer.
He sure does hate FOX news (which just ups FOXs’ standing with me). :0)
The scenes certainly look familiar to me. I recall the family road trips in Sask and the snowdrifts so bloody high I haven’t seen anything like it since leaving in ’78. Weird not seeing tumbleweeds when it’s windy. And I have yet to see a single cricket other than a stowaway in a moving box back then.
Gotta go West someday. For good. Most likely Alberta. I see nothing much for me over here in HerringChokerLand. The economy is terrible compared to its potential.
And I don’t like wasting my potential, either!
The post from “Kinsella” is I think, a TROLL using his name and watching to see the S— fly. Warren is going to be PO’d when he finds this out.
Mike: I agree with the others here on the Kinsella piece. I’d like to know what he thinks about Zimbabwe.
Our natural allies in the Commonwealth wanted to take action against Mugabe prior to the Mar 2002 elections by suspending Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth, which would have been a damning indictment of the gross abuse of political power of the Mugabe regime.
But Jean Chretien stepped in and supported Mugabe which allowed him to proceed (and win) with his fixed elections.
Since then Zimbabwe has gone from being the bread basket of Africa to a basket case.
Point is that Iraqis are better off three years after Bush’s intervention than Zimbabweans are 4 years after Chretiens intervention.
Kate….Reading your thoughts on your truck got me to think….Seems you still enjoy driving it, and really,you could do it pretty cheaply….With your painting skills?….Why not think of it as a great big empty canvass?….Have fun!!!
Those pictures sure make me miss “Big Sky Country”. Doesn’t look that cold at all with the water laying on the road. There are days out here on Vancouver Island that I wish we could cut the trees and level the mountians so that I could get a decent view! Only 2 years left until we sell our place here and move back to Western Manitoba mortgage free!! How many lower mainlanders and Vancouver Islanders can say that!
Here on the Left Coast I have been watching for Bees as my Peach tree has been in bloom for three weeks or so. Maybe the Bees got stuck in the snow on their way west.
Kate, wish I’d known you were in Charlotte, I’d love to have met you! And my husband (a Newfoundlander) would no doubt be inched a bit closer to being a conservative for having met you! (We’re still working through the why-socialism-is-bad stuff, but getting there!)
It is beautiful in Charlotte, I love it more than any place I’ve ever lived! Glad you got back safe. If you get back down here, drop us a line, eh?
The windchill has still been a pain in the butt, but I saw my first robin of the spring, today in Toronto.
Capt Bob, you might want to check into Blue Orchard Mason Bees for your fruit trees.
“Condos’ for them are easy to build or buy; hole size is very specific.
Check out garden centers or horticulture clubs for more info on the mite issues with bees.
They hatch out *very* early and are not aggresive at all!
Some of mine are already bomping around the deck rails.
March on the Prairies…oh, memories.
Looks like it ‘wants’ to melt:)
I usually don’t have much time for Kinsella’s rantings, either. But there’s two things to consider:
1. You need to know what the other guy is thinking.
2. Everybody has an opinion, whether you and I agree on it or not.
I know quite a number of Americans. Most of them are REPUBLICANS. there are now tow sort of Republicans. The George Bush/Dick Cheney/Donald Rumsfeld variety who tend to be a bit too far to the right for me. And the rest.
Take your pick. they both have a place in the scheme of things.
Brrrrr. Hope you have a heater in your truck (for the trip to the rodeo or anywhere else). Those picture bring back memories. I see you also photographed tommy douglas’ old alma mater. Welcome back Kate.
nice to see they still havent fixed the roads!
Hey Kate – speaking of biking weather, it’s been a couple of years since you’ve chronicled at length about your little Yamaha. Still got it?
Umm, Navy Dad, depending on when Kate drove back yesterday, that’s probably ice or slush, not water. If it was around 1400 or later it was probably water. The salt kicks in around -8 or so.
For those who don’t know, the roads have been rinks for the last week in the mornings. Today was good though and that should be that pending more snow.
Problem wasn’t rain or snow, but drifts. We had very little wind this winter so the fields built up. This week we got a lot of good, strong, sustained wind. So the fields drifted onto the roads. The snow stuck, and froze over night. The worst day was probably Tuesday with Wednesday running a close second.
Cheers,
lance
Kate, I envy you. I stuck here in Ontario but my heart is in Sask. Yorkton area to be exact. I will take wide open spaces over this over populated quaigmire of a province any day.
Lance is right – it’s ice and slush on the roads, with just enough water to cake the truck with icicles all down the passenger’s side. Looks like it’s been to Mars and back.
Yikes, Kate. My little ones (two Shih-Tzus) aren’t much bigger than yours; if they had to pee and poop through a winter like that, I’d have to build an indoor solarium for them! 😉
Thank whatever Deity you believe in that Calgary’s had a mild and mostly snow-free winter this year…
Navy Dad – those them things on the road ain’t water – it’s ICE – the wind blows the snow across roads heated by the March sun and that layer of snow then freezes. It is crap to drive in cause it can be clear for several hundred feet and then you hit patches like this – mind you that is in Alberta – in Sask – where the wind doesn’t get stopped by anything – the whole highway is most likely like this!! YIKES!!
Glad you made it home Kate – Spring will come soon enought to those of us in the Prairies! Soon the gophers will once again be poking their heads up over the hillsides.
In a couple of weeks you’ll be wishing for some snow rather than what I saw in the past couple of days- bugs on the bumper and dead gophers on the highway here in southern Alberta.
Seeing those roads reminds me of the night we rolled Billy�s car at 2 in the morning, miles from anywhere, luckily someone came along half an hour later and saved our sorry asses, makes me homesick almost.
Here in Southern Sask, we have hardly even had any snow this winter. Last week when it was blizzard conditions 100 km north of here, we had gophers running around and a few flocks of Canada geese flying back from their winters in the south. I have no idea where they were planning on going when it is full blown winter north of here. Obviously they must have been listening to a weather report on CBC radio, to be that mixed up. No daffodils here yet, but sure signs that spring is approaching. I would gladly suffer through a bad snow storm, and would even try to not complain, as we are desperately dry in this area.
What’s all that blue mid pic?
Peter
Vancouver
Kate,
What type of digital camera are you using?
After all the talk about what Warren Kinsella had to say, I trekked over there…
Obviously, he has not done his homework. Not surprising, since it appears that most of his time is spent looking in the mirror.
Somebody should slap him and tell him to “Snap out of it”.. if he is going to make pronoucments he should have done his homework first.
War in Iraq is not illegal ( Resolution 1441)
And the ‘non-existent’ wmd in Iraq were far from non -existent and as more and more evidence pours in , translated and published it makes this even MORE certain that they were there and were moved as we suspected at the time to Syria and other places. As the General pointed out, on 767’s piece by piece and in some trucks buried that have yet to be found. And links to Al Queda, reported on and confirmed by reliable resources but failing to catch any interest in the drive by media also has escaped Warren’s attention…
As he has the capacity as much as the rest of us to read and comprehend it seems evident he is not paying attention.
This should embarass him, but evidently it does not.
Typical liberal thinking: ” I have made up my mind don’t confuse me with facts” …he’s right about one thing..the lib party deserves a long , long dry spell banished to the political desert to live on rations of bread and water… I hear though that they plan a palace coup immediately on return to parliament and want to use Daycare as their hobbyhorse… As David Asper says in the National Post… ” Come on , Liberals, Make Canada’s Day!”
I used to live in stoontown. Its good to see farming country covered in snow. Theres lots of snow here in Ottawa as well, but its melting.
What a difference a few miles make. Here in South SK it has been the mildest winter in memory, with the least snow as well. It has been sneaker weather all winter. I haven’t shovelled the walk yet and winter should almost be over. The gophers have been out for almost two weeks ) more willing candidates for Kate’s road kill collection) and we have seen geese returning from southern warmer clims for several days.I am not sure where they think they are going as it is full blown winter not too many miles to the north. Maybe they should have listened to the US weather forecasters rather than Enviroment Canada.
Where I live, the Americans weather forecasts are usually right on target. Our Canadian forecasters are usually way out to lunch. A typical Canadian forecast would say” It will clear up cloudy with a chance of a warm frost”
This has really been a bizarre winter. It is kinda scary as it is very dry, but then, if we are going to have a drought, winter is not really a bad time for it to occur.
“What’s all that blue mid pic?
Peter
Vancouver”
Peter, you must have seen that blue before. My mother and 2 siblings live in the lower mainland, and assure me that it appears at least one day a year. I’ve been out there to visit about 1 1/2 dozen times so far, and am told that if I keep coming back, I might even see a mountain peak!
Mark
Winnipeg
Ho crap! I still can see the dog running away!
And that was 9 months ago…
Lance and Alberta Girl, I am from Manitoba and I know what kind of wind will whip up as it crosses the prairies. I might have been a little over-the-top when I mentioned water “all over the place”. But spring is only a few mild days away except the requisite early May snowstorm!!!
Ever hear the one from the Farmer who said “An East wind is cold no matter what direction it comes from!”
it is so flat here…..On a clear day I can see the back of my head.
I won’t be golfing anytime soon on the nine holer in Delisle by the looks of it. Oh well, good moisture for the farmers for seeding. Should only lose their socks this year instead of their shirts.