Leap Day

Today is leap day, February 29th, and what a day it was; slushy snow all day. After not having any measurable snow, really since the weird snowstorm at the end of October, today seemed out of place. It has been almost like Spring lately with temps in the high 40s and 50s. We got around 5 inches. Hopefully it won't stay around too long.

It's beginning to look a little like winter

This morning we woke up to some snow, not much though. This is what my street look like during my walk today, slushy.

It is about 30 degrees warmer than it was two days ago. I think the high for Sunday was about 10.



It is supposed to rain today, so the snow will probably be gone by tomorrow. Mind you, I'm not complaining. It's just weird!

Moving in

Last Sunday (October 30th) Mark, Janelle and Mason went to stay at Janelle's mother's house. None of us (me and Paul, Big Baba, Kris and Toby, and Mark and Janelle) had power. It went out on Saturday afternoon. On Monday, Halloween, Kris and Marley went to Woburn also. They all went trick or treating at Stacia's. I was so happy the kids got to celebrate Halloween. Kristen came home Monday night but Marley stayed there with Mark, Janelle and Mason.

This afternoon, after hearing that we got our power back on last night, they all came here, even Mark's cat Remy. That night everyone else came over for pizza and to warm up. Quite a houseful!

Ride to Wilmington VT

We probably should have stayed home today. We have a lot of things that we need to work on.....but since yesterday was my birthday we decided that we would take another ride and just relax. The calm before the storm so to speak. We headed up to another part of Vermont. The leaves are really starting to turn up in what I call the "high country" (Rt. 9 across southern Vermont).



I was not prepared for what we saw in Wilmington. We have seen a lot of flood damage on our last few rides to Vermont, but what we saw today was the worst, because the whole main street of this town was devastated. We have been to Wilmington many times and know the town well. Dot's restaurant has been a haunt of ours. It sits right next to the river. It was flooded along with the rest of the street.












Here are some pictures of the rest of the main street.











This weekend they were having "Floodstock" at a farm nearby to benefit the town.



Again, I was amazed at the force of water.

It's going to take parts of Vermont a long time to clean up and recover. They have had to rebuild a lot of their roads. It's amazing how much they have done in a month.

***Another Post Office - Wilmington, VT

Ride to Putney, Bellows Falls, and Grafton, VT

Today we took a ride to Vermont. We headed up to Bellows Falls, stopping on the way at Harlow's apple orchard in Putney, VT. I was hoping that they had some Honey Crisps. They are by far my favorite apple. I discovered them here at Harlow's a few years ago. They had them and they were delicious.






Paul reminded me that this was the reason I started my blog, him throwing his apple out my closed window.


After lunch at Fat Franks (one of Paul's favorite hot dog places) and a stop at the scrapbook store in Bellows Falls we headed home on Rt 121 through Saxtons River. That town had so much flooding damage. You can still see where the river rose.

This covered bridge is lucky to be still standing.





So much water damage along this route, roads washed out, trees on the river bank pushed over, homes destroyed. It was just amazing. They have already done at lot of cleanup.

This is just up the road from the Grafton Cheese factory. I saw a video on YouTube about the flooding in Grafton. This is where we have picnics after getting cheese.






This is what it used to look like.





The cheese factory had a raging river right around it. Luckily the covered bridge right next door was alright.

It's just amazing how forceful water can be.


***Some more Post Offices

Feeding Hills, MA


Saxton's River, VT


Townsend, VT

The work of Hurricaine Irene

Hurricane Irene blew into our area last Sunday. Luckily our particular area did not have too much damage. All of the weather channels were really talking it up to be a really bad storm, high winds,flooding, etc. You can read about it here.

Vermont was one of the hardest hit areas in New England. You can read about that here.

Today Paul and I decided to go for a ride and check things out. We took back roads through Western Massachusetts. We had to re-route twice and never did get very far into Vermont. All the roads were closed. Parts of Brattleboro were a real mess, streams flooded, roads buckled, mud everywhere. Sam's Outdoors Outfitters had their basement flooded and lost thousands of dollars in shoes.

On Rt. 9 in Brattleboro Channel 22 News was there reporting.

We have had such weird weather this summer, from the tornado in June, to a microburst a week or two later, to an earthquake in August and now the hurricane.

Here are some pictures that I took, although they did not do justice to what it was really like.

This is Littleville Dam. Although it was nowhere near flood stage, the road that goes down to the lake was totally flooded.




Knightsville Dam. Still not at flood stage but usually in the summer it is just a stream. Note the debris.




Road in Brattleboro, VT




Channel 22 reporting




These next few pictures are from the Green River Park, or as I call it, the Greenfield Pool. This was a place I used to go to frequently with my grandfather and my cousins. My grandfather's brother lived in Greenfield and we used to come here a lot with him.

The water had bent over the iron fence and there was mud everywhere, on both sides of the road.









This is where my grandfather's house used to be, across the street from the golf course, which was flooded. They moved all the golf carts here.




We came across a little door in our travels. I can't remember exactly where this was, but I'll remember eventually.




***Note - today I decided to begin, in addition to my little doors, another series of pictures.

With all the talk of the Postal Service maybe closing some of the post offices, I decided to take pictures of the post offices that we encounter in our journeys.

Today we went by the Brattleboro, VT post office



and the Deerfield, MA post office.

Tornado

Today we experienced a tornado coming through our area. The picture above was sent to me by a friend, whose friend had posted it on Facebook. It is Rt. 20 in Westfield, a couple of miles from where I work.

Earlier in the afternoon, it started to get dark and windy and one of my co-workers happened to look at the on-line weather and told us that there was a tornado warning for our area. When Paul came to pick me up at work he said that definitely a tornado had come through our area.

Luckily, there was no damage to my neighborhood, but just about a mile or so down the road there was damage, huge trees down where the tornado had come through.

The South End of Springfield really got hit hard. So many people displaced from their home.

This is such a rare occurrence in this area of the country. Watching the news on TV that evening seemed so surreal.

Update 6/6/11: The National Weather Service is classifying the tornado that touched down in Westfield and moved east 39 miles through West Springfield, Springfield, Wilbraham, Monson, Brimfield and Charlton as an EF3, with wind speeds of 136 to 165 MPH! The tornado was on the ground for over an hour.

2 weaker tornadoes touched down later in the day, one over Wilbraham and one over North Brimfield. Both of these tornadoes were rated EF1, with maximum wind speeds of 90 mph.

Happy April Fool's Day!

Pretty, but I've had enough!

Littleville Lake

Today after work we took a ride to Littleville Lake to see if it was still frozen. I guess it's going to be a little longer until we can kayak there!

Second day of Spring

Spring can be such a tease; 30's and 1 inch of snow today.

First day of Spring

Today was the first day of Spring, and I can't think of another year when I welcomed the beginning of Spring more. This has been a long hard winter. It doesn't seem possible that the snow piles are almost gone. They were so huge that I didn't think they would ever melt.

Here are a couple of signs of Spring around my house today.

Marley blowing bubbles in the back yard.



My daylilies starting to come up.



Buds on the tree in the back yard.



From Channel 22 News
Snowfall so far this season & records:

November: 0.2"
December: 6.7"
January: 40.5" - A new record!!
February: 25.4"
Total: 72.8"

Welcome Spring!!