The good morning, good night thread

[Ed]

You're both lucky to have a nice covering of the white stuff

Ya wanna come help shovel it, Ed? 

Yeah - for the first week anyway. After that you're on your own

Geoff - if you upload the image to Photobucket they give you the option before uploading to reduce the image size

Lovely pic - well done for capturing it. I spotted a beautiful scene on a frosty morning last week as well, but I didn't have a camera with me. Perfect scene with a weak sun casting a golden glow over a field full of sheep, with tractor tracks leading the eye across the picture and off into infinity, with a backdrop of trees and a clear blue sky. Picture postcard stuff.

[i_abomination]

Yeah, here in Germany it's been snowing a lot but not really stickin.  Just enough to dick you off and ice over your windshield.  But I was over in east Germany last week on business and there was some considerable snow, but nothing like I saw in Austria the week before.  I'd never seen snow that frickin deep.

More impressive than snowing in Oregon, I hear it snowed in Houston - so much for the global warming theory.

[Caz]

Wey-hey, it's the solstice, summer's on its way Happy midwinter all.

[Grillmeat]

Ed said:

BTW - is it unusual for it to snow in Oregon? I thought it was one of those places that got a huge dump of the stuff on a regular basis

It depends on where you live.
If you're up in the Cascades, near Mt Hood or over on the East side of the mountains then you get snow every year for 2-3 months.
Down in the valley, however, it is unusual to get anything more than flooding or freezing rain. 
We ended up with around 8 inches around my part of town. Haven't seen that for about 4-5 years.  Needless to say, I'll be staying in doors today.....

[Ed]

Wey-hey, it's the solstice, summer's on its way Happy midwinter all.

Ah good - the nights are giving out then. Funny, it never feels like mid summer either, when the time comes.

Ed said:

BTW - is it unusual for it to snow in Oregon? I thought it was one of those places that got a huge dump of the stuff on a regular basis

It depends on where you live.
If you're up in the Cascades, near Mt Hood or over on the East side of the mountains then you get snow every year for 2-3 months.
Down in the valley, however, it is unusual to get anything more than flooding or freezing rain. 
We ended up with around 8 inches around my part of town. Haven't seen that for about 4-5 years.  Needless to say, I'll be staying in doors today.....

I spent a few days in Bellingham, years ago, and now I come to think of it the climate was much the same as Vancouver, where it also very rarely snows and sticks. Pretty similar to the weather around here, actually, just a bit colder at its extremes.

[Grillmeat]

Thought I might send you an update from snowville
At this time, we have had the fifth highest accumulation for snow ever recorded. The last reading was 14.5 inches in the metro area.
A lot of roads are closed around here and about 40,000 people to the south of us are without power.  Gresham, a town just five miles to the east of us, declared a state of emergency since emergency personnel cannot navigate the roads.   There is a horror story in this somewhere but I need another day of cabin fever before I can do it justice I think.
Anyhow, here are a few more pictures of how things have changed since the last photos I took.







The first picture is a shot of the side of the house looking towards the front gate. Halfway up is the front door which we have not been able to open for two days.   The second picture is a shot of the length of the backyard. In the previous pictures you could still see the stone planters--now gone under at least two feet of snow.  The last picture is my wife at the entrance to the backyard by the shed and our Champion working Shepherd Booboo.
Hope you all are cozy and warm!!

[starktheground]

Dang! The closest we've got to snow here is a little bit of fluff in the mountains that looks like someone dumped an ashtray on the peaks. 

[Ed]

I hope that snow doesn't give you any trouble when it melts, Kevin

[Grillmeat]

Merry Christmas everyone!!
May there be some mulled (?) wine, spiced cider or cup of nog at table for each of you

[Ed]

Merry Christmas

Our kids had us up at six - they set their alarm clocks - can you believe it? Still, every other year it's been five-something. I'm feeling very sleepy all the same.

We'll be having roast duck for dinner. I'll be cooking it, because my wife can't cook any sense. I thought she was faking it before, in a long drawn out attempt to get out of doing it, but I genuinely believe she has no aptitude for it whatsoever now. Hey ho....

[delboy]

Merry Christmas to you all!

Derek

[Woody]

IT'S CHRISTMAS! Ow, my head. Who shouted that?

Have a great one everyone.

all the best

Woody

[desertwomble]

Merry X-mas, everyone!

By the way, I've put a Christmassy tale into the flash challenge to warm the cockle of your hearts!

DW

[Caz]

  I went out for an early morning bike ride first thing, I always do on Christmas day, it's so peaceful at that time, kind of apocalyptic really. When I reached the town centre I stopped for a breather. There was no one there and the only sound was the cries from the gulls and crows as they argued amongst themselves, there was none of the usual clatter and chatter of shoppers. It struck me as strange that I only noticed this due to its absence. 

  Happy Christmas all.

[Ed]

Sounds good - I like that sort of thing, where huge public places stand deserted and you can almost believe you're the only person on the planet. Maybe I'm a megalomaniac on the quiet? Or a repressed misanthrope