"The sun is shining and the grass is green, under the three feet of snow, I mean." - Stan, South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut

Snow, glorious snow. In June. Really. By the way, The Mrs. took this photo, so don't even think of stealing it. A copyright lawyer is a scary dude, but The Mrs. has the "Mom" look. Don't go there.

I’m out and about on a Sunday, and what hits the hood of my car on June 4?

Snow. Snow flurries hit the Fairbanks area today. I’m sure that this was the tourist version of crack cocaine. They can say that they saw snow falling in June. Imagine how they’ll feel about that back in Missouri? That has to be tourist gold.

“Say, Silas, when I were in Alaska, it done snowed. In June. What do you make of that?”

“Umm, it was Alaska, you went to, right, Horace? Did you expect it to be Hawaii? Get off my lawn, you old fool. And stop calling me Silas. My name’s Ken.”

Several friends said that they had spent Saturday evening covering plants outside, since the planting chart says that you should be safe from frost on June 1. It was 25ºF last night (-273.15ºC), so if you had a nice crop of, well, some sort of vegetable and didn’t cover it, you’ll now have some frozen vegetables. Or maybe it kills the plants. I’m sort of fuzzy on all of that, since if it isn’t a mammal or fish, I’m not sure I want to eat it. I don’t trust things that grow in dirt. Worms live in dirt. The stuff that makes beer is okay; since I’m pretty sure it’s boiled first.

I started a fire yesterday afternoon as the cold front started coming through. In the spirit of more disclosure than you’d ever get from a congressman, (or is it congressperson, or congressbeing? I think it’s congressperson in Seattle. I think it’s congressbeing, or maybe even congressconsciousness in California) it was 70ºF the day before.

Given that I’d made a fire the night before, it was pretty warm in the house when I went to bed. What was fairly unusual is that there was wind that came with the cold front. The wind was fairly constant, and cooled the house through the magic of thermodynamics. Rather than our house just radiating heat, a constant supply of 25ºF air was blowing past it. This decreases the insulating value (there’s math supporting this, but if it makes you feel better, the Cold Faeries are made strong by the Wind God), but primarily results in people (very short people, like The Boy) grumbling that it was cold.

I know he has a snow suit and a parka, so there’s no real reason for him to be cold until it’s minus 25ºF in the house, unless he’s been made weak and lazy by the warm spring days.


The Boy's weather map - probably a better map of Alaska than most could draw, though it looks like the temperature is infinity in Anchorage (down south and in the middle), so there must be a volcano in the forecast. Is the weatherblob happy? I can't tell.

I think he’s just weak and lazy. If the faucets aren’t frozen, it’s not all that cold in the house.

I’m sitting now in a warm house, the crackle of a fire back behind me, The Boy deep in intent study of how to hunt a ghost, courtesy of the SciFi channel. It’s not dark out, won’t be for a few months, and, none of the snow stuck to the ground longer than it took for the Warm Earth God to kill the Cold Faeries with Earth Magic if you’re a vegan, or a Druid, or whatever (or for the heat of the sun-warmed deck to melt it, if you’re me).

It was a lovely day, though, cold or not. Except for the teeth chattering. That makes it hard to enjoy the Sunday paper. But the beer’s cold.