Finally, Autumn

We can't seem to make sense of the weather lately. We saw 80 degrees last week. But now we're back to wearing sweatshirts, rather than shorts.

The snap dragons we planted for Colleen's birthday in April continue to bloom into October. Here you see they are slightly crowded by fallen leaves but still going strong.

A leaf blower is a handy tool, especially when there are four children waiting to jump into leaves. Do you know how hard it is to get all of them to look at the camera when there's a giant pile of leaves to be scattered? The photo below is earlier this week. You can just see Amelia in there sitting in front of Elizabeth.



While searching for photos I came across this photo of Amelia and Colleen (lowest), taken one year ago and shown here for comparison.

Still snowing

Yes, March is going out like a lamb. A big, fluffy lamb. With big, wet, fluffy flakes falling from the sky.

I walked out of the house this morning and it was snowing, but it sounded like rain -- the flakes were so heavy and the ground so warm that they hit the ground with a splat.

Bring on April. Please.

I'd say they're acclimated

It's been another pretty nice day around here today, reminding me of a story Cate told about a warm day earlier in the week.

Robert was daring to go outside without a hat or gloves. It was a really warm day, up to about 40 when it was all said and done. Cate was telling him he needed to finished getting dressed to go outside.

"After all," I was told, "it's 30 degrees out!"

Robert gives a quizzical look at Cate, and says, "minus?"

Robert clearly knows the difference between 30 and minus-30 degrees.

Feel the chill

Yesterday I should've listened to my instincts and stayed home. I'd told myself at the beginning of the winter that I would take advantage of my ability to work from home if it was cold out, and yesterday it was on the verge of being really cold. But I knew that it was only going to get worse, so I decided to suck it up and drive to work.

I was immediately regretting not asking for a spot in the garage the night before, since one was open, and was cursing scraping off the windshield.

I got about 10 blocks from the house when my back windshield basically shattered. It left a hole over about a tenth of the window, with the rest of it hairline cracked. I got out of the car (it was at a stoplight), looked in the hole and saw nothing that might have been thrown through it or could have fallen from a building. The guy in the truck behind me had no idea. (And he wasn't holding a rifle or anything.)

All I could think of was that the glass was simply tired of being heated and frozen twice a day this winter and gave out from the stress.

Turned around and limped home on back streets at about 20 mph, while the glass fell into the back seat piece by piece. (Commuting to work, no kids in the back seat, just my lunch.)

Today, new glass, and 15 degrees below zero when I left for work. (Yes, that's Fahrenheit.) Felt the moisture in my nostrils freeze within about 10 seconds. The car hesitated once but turned over. The thing has 110,000 miles on it and has been outside all winter but has yet to fail me on startup.

The trick today -- after starting the car and cleaning it off, I went back inside to trade off for a dry and warm pair of gloves. Much, much better.

Cate drove the kids to school today so they didn't have to wait for the bus. At least they start at 9:30 instead of 7:30.

Home, sweet home

Ahh, this is nice!

Fun facts about the cold

It turns out Sprite Zero freezes at a higher temperature than Diet Coke or Caffeine Free Diet Coke does.

I have some of each in the trunk of the car. Weather chills it too well now.

OK, so we lied

Turns out that the Sunday before last was not the last great day of the summer. That or today was the last great day of the fall, or the first great day of winter.

Elizabeth and I got the bikes back out of the garage and headed for Minnehaha Falls. She and Robert and Colleen and I had just been there yesterday but we had designs on getting back there. I wasn't sure Elizabeth was going to make it -- the route is 15 miles round trip, nearly twice as long as our trip two weeks ago. So we took a nice break when we got there, thankful that the Dairy Queen stayed open a couple days later than it seems they were expecting.

Meanwhile, Nonna took Robert and Colleen down to the park, where they ran into their friends from down the street, August, Jacob and Eloise.

Also, Elizabeth got played this time. She doesn't like to shift gears on her bike at all, and would do the entire ride in fifth gear if she could. But I told her that I didn't think we'd make it to the falls if she didn't shift up into a higher gear. Voila -- 12th all the way.

"It feels weird," she said. But she did just fine, no surprise.

It's snowing!

The day has finally arrived -- the first snow flurries of winter. And the kids are excited, at least a little bit.

As Elizabeth said: "It was cold, and it was wet, and there wasn't really a lot of it."

Obviously, the flurries aren't accumulating anywhere and there won't be any sledding or snowball fights today, but at least it's something. The kids were all standing at the kitchen windows staring, then had a sudden interest in playing outside, for some reason.

As I write this, Elizabeth has gone back outside to document it. You may have to click on the photo to get the larger version to actually see the snow coming down.

Something winter this way comes

Temperature in the low 40s this morning. Hard to get out of bed, plus haven't gotten a lot of sleep lately because I'm doubling as the news editor at work for two weeks.

Pulled the winter coat out. It definitely kept me warm but I wonder how many layers I'll need a month from now.

Our old car, the one we were worried wouldn't get all the way to Minneapolis, is doing great with the colder mornings since I replaced the battery. I'm fairly proud of the original battery getting 109,000 miles but it had two bad mornings earlier this week and it had to go.

Meanwhile, in this weather, Elizabeth is still biking to school. We got her on a new bike this weekend and she loves it. It's a 21-speed that she only uses as a 1-speed at the moment, but it's a good size for her and hopefully she and I can get out and ride together before the end of the biking season.

Local climate change

Clearly, we were aware that it would be cooler here than in the Washington area, and that it would get cold sooner, etc. As we pull out the long-sleeved shirts for the kids ... and the rest of us ... it seems to be turning cooler even sooner than one would expect.

Case in point -- this week I am beginning to get my fall allergies. (Or my fall cold, perhaps.)

Usually I get them in mid-October.

So for this week, I'm a bass. Or a baritone. Cate isn't feeling well either. In fact, she fell asleep early and since I was at choir practice, Elizabeth (bless her) put Colleen to sleep.

Take that!

I realized this afternoon that I still have the weather button on my Google toolbar set to pull the current temperature for the 20164 zip code.

I chuckled when I saw the temperature in the 20164 was 91 degrees. Here in the 55410 it was a cool 62!