More snow

[altivo]

It's snowing again. They say another two to four inches tonight, but at least it won't be as cold as last night when we went down to -5°F/-20°C. Just a light dusting at the moment, but the radar looks like it will be getting heavier soon. All the usual stuff, snow advisory, hazardous weather outlook, etc. Tess was grumpy with me because I didn't take her out to the pasture this afternoon. I just couldn't get her to understand that all the grass is buried under six inches of white cold stuff right now.

Argos' bracelet arrived in today's mail. That was less than ten days from when it was sent from Hong Kong, which surprised me a bit. It wasn't charged anything in customs, which surprised me even more. Perhaps that's because the customs label was in Chinese and the only thing written on it in English was "gift". It was packed very nicely in a hollowed out space between two blocks of plastic foam. The bracelet itself was inside a pretty little silk brocade bag with drawstrings. Terrific gift presentation, indeed. It's a little lighter than I expected, but for the price I can't complain. The figures on either side of the stone are very Asian looking dragons. It does indeed bend easily to adjust the size, so should be no problem to wear over a fursuit. One little part of the costume is taken care of. :)

I've settled on which furs from the samples I want to get. Now I just have to decide how much of each to order. One is a long, almost 3 inch pile with a few black tipped hairs. That will be for a shoulder ruff and a narrow strip down the spine, as well as the upper surface of the tail. The other two are almost pure white, one longer than the other. The short one will go on the face, belly and underside of arms and paws, while the longer one will be used for back, legs, top of arms and paws, and top and back of the head I think. The long white is "white fox" while the shorter one is "white mink". I need to collect some photos of real white wolves and make some character sketches now.

Pause in the writing to go over the storyline and make notes of discrepancies and inconsistencies, of which there are quite a few. No surprise given that it was written in NaNo style, pressing forward without looking back. There are some timeline issues and other things that must be fixed in the end, though I'm not going back to edit yet. I also have a story exchange to write, and two short story submission deadlines I hope to make this month. Don't worry, Argos will keep moving, just more slowly. I've outlined the sequence of events to the end now, and settled on pretty much the way it will fall together. There are several fun twists and surprises, I think. At least, I think they'll be surprises.

Gary's making supper, he came back from Chicago early rather than risk getting caught in the snowstorm. I'd better go help.

Comments

[luperion.livejournal.com]

Proper arctic woofies are all white. :-)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

There's nothing proper about Argos other than his manners. How many vegetarian woofies do you know?

Though "arctic" fits with next year's MFF theme of "North to Alaska," Argos is never described as anything other than just "white wolf". Besides, he's sweet like you. ;D

[schnee.livejournal.com]

Why does everyone get snow except for me? Darn coastal climate - and darn gulf stream, for that matter. x.x

If you need wolf pictures, you may be able to find some in wolfphotography, BTW (*plugplug*). ^^ I also used to have a large collection myself in the past, but I've often had bad luck with hard disks, so...

[altivo.livejournal.com]

You're near the coast? I remember when I studied German in graduate school the teacher made quite a lot out of the weather. He said that Germany was a lot wetter but rarely as cold as this area, which matches what you're saying here I guess. The Great Lakes do moderate the climate here, and especially so for those who live near western coastlines like the west side of Michigan or the western end of New York. But that moderation in temperatures is usually associated with an increased snowfall in the winter. I'm on the wrong side of Lake Michigan to see a lot of that effect (we call it "lake effect") but still get some of it here because of elevation. We are 50 to 60 miles from the lakeshore, and 400 to 500 feet above it. That's apparently just enough that when the wind is northeast and the temperature below freezing, it snows a lot.

[schnee.livejournal.com]

*noddles* MMmm... I wish I could say the same thing about this place. :) I live in Kiel myself, which is situated at the Baltic Sea, BTW (not directly at the gulf stream, of course (that's the other side of the state), but we're still influenced by that as well, in addition to the regular influence on climate that the sea has)

Right now, for example, it's raining, but it just isn't cold enough for there to be snow. :P It's often noticeable in weather forecasts on TV etc., too - in Bavaria (specifically, in the Alps), it usually gets much hotter in summer and much colder in winter, despite the fact that that's about 1000 km further south.

Not that I'd want to move there, of course (summers here are already too hot by far for my tastes, for one thing) , but I would love to move further up north, to a place with colder winters *and* colder summer. *s*

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Maybe Sweden?

I'm not surprised about Bavaria. As you move away from the coast, the temperatures are always more extreme. Elevation also seems to increase the range on both ends in many cases.

[schnee.livejournal.com]

Yeah, certainly true...

And yes, Sweden would probably be an option, although I'd prefer Iceland. ^.^ I'd like to emigrate there at some point, but I'm not sure if it'll ever be possible; it'll all depend on how things develop in my life. Still, I'd love to go there, and not just because of the temperatures, either (which aren't *quite* as low as people often seem to expect, BTW; Iceland is still hit by the gulf stream as well); it's also the people, the culture, and the land as such that appeal to me. Oh, and the language, of course - þetta tungumálið er frabært. ^.~ (Although that may or may not have been grammatically correct now.)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I seem to recall that Iceland's weather is also affected by the number of active or semiactive volcanic features in the area. Hot springs and such.

Icelandic is a fascinating language and literature, I agree. I never had an opportunity to study the language directly, though I have some exposure to its relatives in Old Norse and Anglo-Saxon. I read quite a lot of Icelandic traditional literature when I was in college, in translation of course. I'm sure the original shares the kind of stark poetic quality that Anglo-Saxon has, and I've been fairly well exposed to the original in that case.

[schnee.livejournal.com]

*noddles* I hope I'll be able to read those things in the original versions some day. :) Of course, modern Icelandic is not quite the same as Old Icelandic, and Old Icelandic is not quite the same as Old Norse, but you apparently can still read Old Icelandic texts without any real problems if you know modern Icelandic. (Or, well, at least you won't have any real problems relating to the language as such; understanding kenningar and so on may still be difficult, and from what I've heard, in poems etc. at least, a lot of grammatical freedom was taken as well.)

As for the weather in Iceland, yes, I suppose that also plays a role. :) At least one of the nice things about Iceland is that even when the weather's cold, there'll always be natural hot pots and the like to relax in. ^.^

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Oh, and thanks for the photography pointer. I'll definitely have a look. :)

[schnee.livejournal.com]

You're welcome! :)

[farhoug.livejournal.com]

So there's the snow gone! We've been having above freezing temperatures and rain for a couple of days now, and the snow is disappearing quite rapidly. Hopefully it comes back soon, sunset is around 3pm and it's awfully dark now as the wet ground eats all the light.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

It's unusual. We don't often get heavy snow this early in the winter. More typically it holds off until January and then really dumps on us. There were about two inches of new snow last night, and it's snowing again as I write this.

[farhoug.livejournal.com]

I guess there's (still) no trusting in weather. =)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Actually this may be a Republican plot to try to prove that there is no such thing as global warming. . .

It's amazing how hard it is to get people to understand that there could be global warming and yet some areas seem to be cooling off at the moment. They just can't see the larger picture at all.

[farhoug.livejournal.com]

I think the whole thing should be renamed as "Global Weather Randomizer", or just a "global mess-up", even though it's a bit wordy still.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I think there are a few folks who need their heads pushed through the randomizer then. Obviously they are put together wrong and need reassembly... ;p

Here it's very abrasive and you hear it every day, the claims from folks who refuse to believe there is any climate change going on, or if there is, that human activity is contributing to it in any way. It's like a religious dogma, they don't care about any amount of facts or evidence, it just isn't true to them.

[farhoug.livejournal.com]

I sometimes wonder if those people are serious, or is it just a nice hobby for them being a "contradictarian". But yeah, some reassembly required. Too bad the warranty has already expired on those. =)

It's an amazingly delicate system we live in too, I was just reading about the first nuclear tests, and how those immediately made the radiation levels to spike up all around the world. That from just a couple of hundreds of kilos of radioactive material, and then people are claiming that human population has little or no effect on our environment... silly people.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Well, the Flat Earth Society is nearly extinct at last. But the society of those who refuse to believe in evolution or global climate change seems to be growing. XD

[altivo.livejournal.com]

On the same line of non-thinking, did you know there are a substantial number of people in the US who insist that the Apollo program was entirely faked and that no one ever walked on the moon?

[farhoug.livejournal.com]

Heh, I just recently heard a podcast where two people from opposing sides were having a "conversation" about the moon landings. All with the odd reflections on the pictures, the missing data tapes from the mission control NASA has misplaced, and as an added bonus, some wild theory of some former Nazi scientist making a "moon rock" collection tour on Antarctic. But well, it was pretty amusing anyways.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

*watches your doings quietly with that mostly curious but slightly inscruitable look that cats tend to have* :D

[altivo.livejournal.com]

*notices that you're so busy watching the food preparations that you missed the mouse that ran right by your tail*