AUstin, has .....s-n-o-w !

Oddly, I might have been colder in very northern coastal california. Once in a while it would get down to 28 or so at night, in my relatively warm neighborhood, but was often between, say, 35 and 45 in the daytime in winter, but... yeah, moist and often windy, shiver making, as we were a block off the water. Shut that door!!!!!

We are right on the edge of the bad weather Austin has been getting. It was dry this morning and 28 degrees. Now, it is about 32 degrees and raining. The management wants me to spend the night at the apartments so I will be able to put a product called Ice Melt on the steps.

What makes this kind of weather rough, aside from nobody can drive slick streets, the plumbing is not protected from bad freezes. It is exposed to the elements in lots of ways. We wrap the pipes and drip the faucets, hoping it will be sufficient to protect from broken pipes.

Snow shovel, hell. Hardly anyone here owns a coat.

Hah, I've just had conversations with JLNobody and Dyslexia about that. After talking with JL, I was out in the yard at midnight last night, having followed up his suggestion about dripping hot water taps with a cursory google investigation - I then was taking hoses off my hose bibs and wrapping the bibs in miscellaneous pillowcasing and plastic bags (I didn't have rags, as the website suggested, except for my tee shirts, which I like). With a flashlight. Wonder what my neighbor's think.

Dys was moderately distainful; he did all that and more where it was colder longer. But, newbie that I am, and with an already leaking roof, I'm dripping my faucets - even though my house sits on slab instead of a basement foundation or a cripple wall. This house is funky enough that I don't trust it further than I can throw it.

Going to be -17 Celsius overnight (around -4 Fahrenheit, I think). Damn cold. Too cold to snow. Scraping frost off the INSIDE of the windshield cold. Brrr....

In Houston, I believe it!

Osso will laugh, but just today I learned something about southern houses. In northern states, houses were originally built with central fireplaces to keep the whole house warm. But in the South, fireplaces are always on exterior walls. I never thought about it before.

Single digit temps here tonight. Brrrrrr......

oh wait, it's not the fact it snowed, it's the ICE that started forming last night with the sleet, and rain....

yeah, the ice, the snow was just on top of it....yeah....

The worst driving conditions I ever came across as far as winter conditions was in Wisconsin.....brrrr....

however, this surprised me...one December 1 (I remember because it was the day before my B-day) my ex-husband was driving me to the airport in Milwaukee, and it started lightly snowing. Just a dusting. I think it must have been in 1989/90? anyway the only reason I remember it is that in the evening when I talked to him on the phone, he said something like 4 or more people had gotten into serious accidents/died because of that little bit of snow...go figure.

Another surprise, when it would be all icy during the day, I'd go out with my scrapper to uncover my car after work, just like I'd done all my life. In the parking lot there'd be all these people who were BORN there for crying out loud, trying to scrape their cars with the edge of a credit card or their drivers license.

When I first moved there, it was Fall, and I took my car, like you do every Winter, to the garage to have them winterize it. The owner heard I didn't have a mid-western accent I guess, and tried to make out I was an idiot. "Winterize? What do you mean?"

me: Winterize, you know, where you check and fill the antifreeze, check the battery, all the fluids, put on snow tires, make sure it's ready for cold weather?

him: Wellll, I never heard that, but okay.

Then he proceeded to take about 3 times as long to do it as I know it should have.

I really thought I must have been stupid all these years, until I asked my husband, who grew up in Illnois, if he ever heard of winterizing your car.
he said, "well yeah, that guy was just being an a$$hole.

Huh, now that I think of it, last time I was up in Illnois, it was coming onto winter, and I remember seeing a sign offering a "winterize your car" special. That's what probably made me ask my man.

Eva, I won't laugh, I didn't know that. Southern California was not so much fireplace land until recent years - although of course there were some - as more fancy houses, or developers' houses, proliferated. I pay attention to buildings in other states and countries, but in a sort of general stupor. In my recent time in very northern california, the fireplace of my 1915 (or whatever) house was on an exterior wall. So.. see, you knew more already.

So, Wunderground says it'll go to 10 degrees here tonight.. No new snow for a while, thank my bippy. I need to take Pacco to his new vet in the morning.

Actually, it works not too bad. Not as good as the road salt kind, but it does work in a pinch.

It does give you a bit of traction and does melt somewhat. I keep a spare box just in case.

The advantage is as well that it won't be poisoness to pets if you track it into the house.

but it does kill your vegetation if you happen to pour some around it.

But, as i said, it worked. Barely.. but it worked.

Well, in all fairness, I haven't tried it out on plants. I think you're much less likely to damage them with table salt than the deicing kind though. Like I mentioned above, it can have the potential to harm pets if they lick it up.

Yeh, ICE. Not only had I not driven in snow before two weeks ago, I hadn't driven on/through/around ice. Also, when I was a kid in both NY and Chicago area, our land, or the land around the apt bldg in NY, was flat. Here, my driveway has an, oh.... possibly 8% slope, though not for all that many feet - say 18 feet, maybe 25 to the street. Ice city in several places, though. I didn't need bashed bones.

I'm a good faller, so far in my life, have quite an accumulated history as ms. clumsy. Have fallen in all the best and worst places. I see I digress.

I've fallen on a tree root in front of the Greek Theater in LA. Fallen in a bar in Tijuana, just sitting down, sans having had any alcohol. When my real estate agent was showing me houses here, I fell down some steps.
Puts the fear of lawsuit in those around me...

Well, you get the idea, I've low night vision and poor peripheral vision, flop, splat. bounce up. I fell just this week on a small rock (fine, thank you). But - ICE - that actually worries me.

Really?

I thought table salt was just as vicious to plant roots as the salt used for highways , and rock salt..


huh


next time I am mad at my neighbors, better by pass the Mortons huh..

hehe....Bleach.....

Anti-freeze?


Oh, ****.

Salt is salt, so far as ice and pets are concerned. There are other, and better, compounds around. I think one is potassium chloride instead of the sodium chloride, but not sure of the composition. Anyway, it looks and acts like rock salt.

Not to interrupt about salts, but will any of you clue me in on antifreeze?

The storm just skirted Tomball. We had sporadic light rain all night and 28 dgrees in the AM, twice in a row. I got out at five and put the ice melt on the stair steps. There were a few patches of ice, mostly on the lip of the treads. To me, patches are more dangerous than sheets, because you are less careful on them. I think by ten AM we should be out of the woods.

alternative to salt, kitty litter.

Then when you fall on your ass, you get kitty litter all over your pants.