Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Winter...Oklahoma style!

Here in Oklahoma we just don't get much winter weather.  Ice is more common than snow.  But last night a serious (by Oklahoma standards) snow storm rolled in and it's winter!  We ended up with just under 12 inches.  We have a temp of about 9 degrees and a wind chill of about -15 degrees with 60 mph winds!  We've got some snow drifts around our house bigger than my husband!


Again, that may be no big deal to someone from up north.  But down here, we are not prepared for stuff like this!

The chicken run got enclosed with scraps of  plywood yesterday in hopes of keeping the drifts out.  No such luck.  They even had snow drifting up into the coop so my sweet husband took them out some fresh water and fruit scraps and cleaned out all the snow and gave them some fresh straw.  The dogs are hanging out in the garage with a radiant heater.  Hubby captured these little guys perched above our back door.


School was cancelled today and tomorrow and no church Wednesday night.  I've been knitting, cleaning house, doing laundry and working on Valentine's with the boys.  Tomorrow there will be more cleaning house, laundry and working on Little Bit's shirt for the 100th day of school next week (we're painting 100 stars on it)!


Local television stations have streamed live shots of the weather all day.  The poor "B-string" weather folks get thrown out in it with a camera man to capture shots of them wading into the biggest drifts they can find and sticking their rulers in the ground to show how deep it is.  They drive around all over the metro capturing pictures of people shoveling their cars out of ditches and telling us how they are "wearing five pairs of pants and three coats and I'm still cold!"


You can tell the weathermen are stoked, though.  They live for this stuff.  Well, this and tornadoes!  The "community correspondence" people at the station are telling us about tweets and Facebook comments people are making and reminding everyone to send in their pictures of the "Blizzard of 2011!"

It's silly, really, how excited we get down here over our weather.  But it's been fun.  There's something about extreme weather that we Oklahomans sincerely enjoy!


5 comments:

  1. Holy snow Batman! I now you may be tired of the snow, but man do I miss having a winter! We lived in Wichita for 3 years and it was so much fun to have snow (I am a Florida girl!). Wearing shorts in Feb. just takes away from the winter experience! I hope the hens are staying warm!
    Lacy

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  2. I am an Oklahoma girl too. I thought the same thing about the weathermen! I teach school, so I am enjoying this unscheduled break! And you forgot the best part...just three days ago it was 78 degrees! Enjoy. Lori L

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  3. We had some large drifts too!! Our friends up by Tulsa got over 21" between the BIG storm and the smaller one that came through a few days later!! I love actually having 4 seasons!!!

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  4. I'm in Oklahoma City and the hype of the weather men here in Oklahoma is exactly why I refuse to watch. I cannot stand the joy they get from bad weather. I get all my weather online. I can't stand the hype of the local news either and refuse to watch it also. I'm happy to find a fellow Oklahoman here! I'm snowed in and loving it.

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  5. HI Mykl,
    Thanks for stopping by my blog and for the sweet comments about my "vintage" Easter eggs. I hope the weather there has improved since that picture was taken! Those are some major drifts!

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