Brrrr Squared

Paradise! Yeah! BUT sometimes a little something will come along to change Paradise.

Like a NORTHER!!!!

Cold fronts coming down from the North bring 4 things: wind, rain, a drop in temperature and Brrrr Squared in one's house.

Every year from November through the end of January (sometimes into February) we are hit with several Northers! The seas become rough and travel is at a standstill both on the water and in the air. Rain falls in unheard of amounts; one year in December, we had 36" in one day! Before that the largest rainfall here in our 10 years of occupation was 7" in a day.

What this means is that we are cold! Out come the socks, sweatshirts and long pants. Our house is fairly open so even with closing the louvered windows, we huddle in bed and spend our time reading. On those days, not much gets done except the supreme effort of keeping warm. I cook soup and hearty meals, but other than that, we simply retire to the bed where we have a quilt and can cover up and read.

Of course the animals suffer too. Just this last week a cold front hit here on Friday (Jan. 4, 2008) and with it came rain, wind, rough seas and cold air! I let two of the 3 dogs sleep inside. One sticks next to our bed, while the other hides in the closet. The outside dog takes refuge with one of the cats. Our one parrot who is in the house during the daytime and outside in her cage at night got a reprieve and was allowed to stay in the house. My little Sun Conure, Peek-a-Boo, has a small log in the top of her cage and she headed in there to keep warm!

Of course, there are the hummingbirds. For some reason, this year, they did not all migrate in November and we have a lot of the little Green Mango birds here feeding off of our feeders. Normally they fight one another for a spot and only recently would you see 4 feeding on one feeder at the same time! However, I caught them on the feeder in back of the house and believe it or not, 3 were huddled together, not feeding, but simply sitting out of the rain while another bird was trying to feed in the hole they had abandoned! The photo was through the screen and difficult to see, but if you look carefully you can see 3 birds huddled together to the left. I went outside and took another shot at a different angle and you can see all the birds that are frantically trying to feed!

Not to mention the 6 birds that took refuge under our porch roof on the clothesline. There were actually about 13 birds on the lines but some flew off when went out to take a photo.

Then there was the angry sea and the clouds in the sky to make the day even more dreary.

With my warm wool socks, my warm sweatshirt sporting the famous "Uff da" phrase of my Swedish ancestors, I was prepared.

Of course, this will not last and is only the subject of interest for everyone for a few days. As a matter of fact, the people on our Yahoo Group spent quite a bit of time commenting on the weather this past week! In a couple of days we should be back to our balmy 80-82 degrees and back will go the long pants, sweatshirts and socks for another day.

Oh, well, like taxes and death, there is nothing you can do about the weather except accept it!