Riding out the storm!
The indentured servants at Stately Blaska Manor are battening the hatches. Stockpiling provisions. Girding for the big one.
The b&w rabbit-eared Philco advises that the Emerald City here in southern Wisconsin is under a winter storm watch. Bracing for 6 inches of snow and 50 mph winds starting Thursday 12-22-22, culminating in a deep freeze on Christmas eve with wind chills of 20° below zero F.
Even the unlettered field hands are hunkering down (the only direction in which one can hunker) in the basement, like the Osceola Brothers and their tribe during the hurricane in Key Largo. (Can you hold it down, down there? We’re trying to blog!)
What is it about the human psyche that relishes going into survival mode?
A little existential danger sharpens the senses. Triggers the survival instinct! Is it why Harvey Firestone, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and President Warren Harding took up camping? The more gilded, the greater the impulse to rough it? (They brought their servants, anyway.) Is danger a Darwinian pop quiz?
We’re not going to butcher an oxen and crawl into its viscera like Max Von Sydow did to save his child during a Minnesota blizzard, as portrayed in The Emigrants. But we are searching for the mates of the three left-handed gloves in the hallway drawer. We are so vexed!
The fire box is piled high with 16-inch fireplace wood. Bag of discarded political campaign literature to coax the burn. (Not that we expect our underground natural gas lines to freeze up.) Before beddie bye, the unpaid servants shut the venetian blinds to retain heat. Basement window wells covered. Bird feeders filled. The engine block heater on the little FIAT 500c is live, not that we intend to venture outside the stable in this weather!
Recalls growing up on the farm east of Sun Prairie during similar winter storms. More than once, motorists abandoned their vehicles and sought refuge at our dinner table until the storm blew over.
No panic permitted at the Policy Werkes!
Robert Baden-Powell, the English soldier who founded the Boy Scouts, said it: “We are always in a state of readiness in mind and body to do our duty.” The ill prepared can raid Woodman’s and HyVee like ravenous carpenter ants. We drank their milk shake!
For that, we can thank the Lovely Lisa. Her hobby seems to be grocery shopping. Shops three different supermarkets to get that special cut of beef here and save a dime on that carton of half & half there. Result: our larder is groaning with enough provisions to feed Somalia. Assorted cans of Sunsweet® prune juice have awaited irregular emergencies for going on 30 years now. Cans of coconut milk will have to languish until yet another summer‘s pina colada. One drawer alone is jammed with eleven 8-ounce bags of Wonderful® brand roasted and salted pistachios. (We counted.)
Blaska’s Bottom Line: If the blizzard demands our surrender, we will give the same answer as that general in the Battle of the Bulge: “NUTS!”
Education
Blaska Policy Werkes 
As we await hankdog/old baldy’s anticipated slobberings about how this is what we must expect from Global Warming/Climate Change/Climate Crisis/Mother Gaia Has A Fever, etc., etc., etc.
(bolds/caps/italics mine throughout)
Dr. David Viner, Senior Research Scientist/ Climate Research Unit (CRU)-East Anglia University, U.K. (of ClimateGate infame) in 2000: “Within a very few years winter snowfall will become ‘a very rare and exciting event. Children just aren’t going to know what snow is.’ ”
5 of the (heh!) 6 snowiest winters in U.S. history (’03, ’08, ’10, ’11, ’13) quickly followed. Tipping Points are issued, come and go, and just like the nutcase Preachers, the nutcase Warmalista AlarmaCYSTS simply reissue with Chicken Little Lefty cluelessly in tow, glassy eyein’, lock steppin’, & unquestionin’!
“In 2001 global warming meant fewer major snowstorms with some scientists even predicting the end of snow, but in 2015 global warming means more major snowstorms.”
Huh??
“Some scientists are now saying global temperature rises will lead to more massive snowstorms like the one that covered Boston in several feet of snow this week (February 2015) — a complete turnaround from what climate scientists were saying just a few years ago. “In 2001, the UNIPCC reported that ‘MILDER WINTER TEMPERATIRES WILL DECREASE HEAVY SNOWFALLS.’
“The IPCC doubled down on this claim in 2007, saying that ‘a growing number of case studies of larger settlements indicate that climate change is likely to increase heat stress in summers while reducing cold-weather stresses in winter.’ ”
That must mean that Warmalista Alarmacysts were against more snow before they were for it, am I right?
Anywho, the Global Warming That’s Here And Worse Than The Models Predicted is like VISA, it’s everywhere you want it to be!
FWIW, the Hurley WI (Where Hwy 51 Ends And The Fun Begins!) snowfall totals to date are closing in on 100″/2.54 meters, if they’re not there already….in possibly related news, Winter begins tomorrow.
Brrr!!
The Gotch
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wow, a double helping of nonsense.
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Some statistics. Most annual snow falls in Madison.
2007, 2008 101.4″
1978, 1979 76.1″
2008, 2009 72.0″
Note: I worked all of these repairing snow plows.
Coldest day in recent history
1/31/2019 -26F
Miami is still above water and President Obama bought a house on the beach in Martha’s Vineyard.
Our snow totals have gone from 12-20″ Sunday to 6-12″ Monday to 4-6″ today and I wonder what it will be tomorrow?
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The snowiest one day accumulation was 17.3″/43.94 cms was Monday 12/03/1990; it was BRUTAL!
The Gotch ran 12 miles/19.3 kms in it and the State Journal’s December 4th Front Page, framed as a tribute, still hangs in his office.
The Weather Channel’s intrepid Jim Cantore was on location in Madison in 2008 to watch us break the record that season.
The Gotch
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I remember in 1976 or 77 kids were jumping off garage into snow banks, got on roof with toro snow pup, same year we got ice storm 1976 then maybe. 3 days without power, that winter was bad too.
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The lamestream national press is breathlessly warning of the “lifethreatening cold bomb cyclone blizzard” that will sweep through at weeks end. The locals are forecasting 2″ of snow. Or maybe 2′ Thursday through Friday. Or maybe Saturday. The uncertainty is understandable and acceptable as the proverbial butterfly sneeze in the Gulf can determine where and when the frontal occlusion will occur that will determine rain or snow, 15 or 60 mph winds, 5 or 30 hours of precipitation. So folks are jiggering contingency plans to get to Grandmother’s house Christmas Eve weather notwithstanding. Or they’re laying in an adequate supply of brandy to get through the weekend
Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. I’ve got full gas tanks in the snowblowers, 400 pounds of water softener salt in the truck bed, new wax on the cross country skis. And enough brandy to get me through impending bomb cyclone blizzard.
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You can relax reading the Digest.
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MAGNIFICENT sunrise, this morning…Red Sea At Morning/Sailor Take Warning!
The Gotch
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Weather forecast the other day: 3-20″ of snow– wish I had that kind of leeway with my job! Just got a call from my Doctor’s office, canceling my appointment Fri as the clinic will be closed due to “the storm “. Good lord, people, it’s winter in Wisconsin, for crying out loud. Masks, vaccine mandates, stay inside and isolate, dont take risks, let the “experts” decide everything.. what happened to everyone?
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“what happened to everyone?”
It hasn’t happened to everyone, but you make a point; two places which may hold some answers:
The United States Of The Offended: The WUSSIFICATION Of America
<a href="https://heterodoxacademy.org/coddling-of-the-american-mind/"The Coddling of the American Mind How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting up a Generation for Failure
The Gotch
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Good link: The Coddling of the American Mind How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting up a Generation for Failure
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It seems like no one in the local area has ever seen snow before. The schools are all closed as well as the DOT is telling everyone not to drive unless absolutely required. The weather forecasters are treating this as if it is a hurricane.
All this for 2-6 inches of snow over a 2 day period.
Big deal!
Good golly miss molly, we are going to have snow.
Will be out there tomorrow plowing the white stuff.
No big deal.
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The snowflakes are afraid of snowflakes.
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And, after anouther sneak attack like 1941 dec 7 th, the politicians nailed us again. 2023 I declare POLITICIANS the dirty word in Webster dictionary. Both parties t too.
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I wonder how fast they will be driving on the flex lane on the Beltline when it’s snow covered? I heard yesterday the east bound side at about 4:30 pm was a parking lot from the interstate to Seminole.
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Further descent into complete-n-total WUSSIFICATION:
They’ve CANCELED tomorrow night’s U.W. -v- Grambling State BB game!
What effin’ pu$$ie$!!!
The Gotch
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