Snow ... and snakes?

As Charlie and I started out on our walk this morning we noticed a dead snake in the road - looked like it had been run over.  It was a bull snake, about 3 feet long.  None of this is all that extraordinary, except the snake was not there yesterday, and the temperature has not been above 40° since then.  So what was this snake doing out on the road at that temperature?  I suppose I will never know.

We ended up getting about 6" of snow, which is not bad for mid-May.  It looks like the low last night was 32° last night, and it was 34° when we started our walk.  We got a lot of plants covered up in the yard yesterday, because the forecast low for tonight is 30°.

I have been reacquainting myself with FFTW this morning because there is something I want to try for a program I am working on.  After four months of not programming my skills have lost just a little bit of their edge, but it is fun to discover that there is still a brain in there.  However, at this point I had better get back to working on putting in cabinets.

SNOW!!

Last night they were forecasting up to half an inch of rain, then another inch of rain today, turning to snow late tonight.  So this was not what I expected to see when I got up this morning:

The forecast still says less than an inch for the rest of the day, but right now the snow is falling heavy and fast.  There are about 5 inches of snow right now, and at this rate we should be getting an inch every half hour or so.  The high yesterday was 77°, it has not gotten above 33° so far today.

I am extremely happy with the weather, but I will admit to feeling a little sad for the ash trees.  They lost all their leaves when it got down to 19° two weeks ago, and had just started sending out new leaves.  I don't know if this cold will kill those leaves, since the forecast low over the next couple of days is about 29°.

I took Charlie out for about two miles this morning.  I let him off-leash because there was almost no one around, and he had great fun bounding through the snow.

Water

I typically walk Charlie in an open area ("greenbelt", in the local vernacular) close to the house.  There is a small stream that runs through it.  There is one stream crossing in particular where they have had problems in recent years with the water running across the trail.  They have tried three different configurations now to prevent that.  The newest configuration had its first test yesterday when it rained steadily for about 5 hours.  It failed miserably.  I know, I know, I should have taken a picture.  They built a dyke about 3 feet tall to channel the water to where it is supposed to go under the sidewalk.  The dyke was breached in four places this morning.  I think when they propose solutions they just can't picture the volume of water that goes down there during a storm.  Much lower down we crossed again.  They recently reconfigured that crossing by constricting the tubes that flow under the sidewalk (?!?), but at least the sidewalk is about four feet higher than the creek bed.  You can see marks where the water was flowing at least six feet deep there.  Someday I need to go out while it is raining and take pictures.

I put in two more cabinets yesterday.  Only two more to go on that wall, then there are only two on the wall above the sink.  Tee hee!  Then I have to attack the lower cabinets.

Visible Progress

Well, I am finally starting to make visible progress on the kitchen:

Since we are seeing it straight-on it is not obvious what the differences in depths are.  The cabinet over the refrigerator is basically as deep as the refrigerator.  Putting it up was an interesting exercise.  The two right-most cabinets are slightly out of horizontal, so I am going to have to move them a little this morning.  After looking at the picture I realized that the cabinet with its back to us (which is the next one to go up) is blocking the bottom cabinet that I have put in to the left of the range.  Once I take out the cabinets on the right I can put in the base cabinet and the new cook top, so I am excited about that.

After straightening the two cabinets, though, I am going to have to put in the microwave.  That ought to be interesting.  I am actually going to open up the wall, because the only stud for mounting it is right in the middle of the microwave, which precludes venting it back through the wall.  So I am going to build a frame of 2x4's so that the vent can go through and I will have multiple "studs" for mounting.  The new microwave only weighs about 80 pounds, so I am going to need some help getting it into place.  I have been building supports for the cabinets as I go along, and I think I will do one for the microwave as well.

It has been a week, but I should also comment on the snow.  After ridiculously warm weather for weeks we got 8 inches of snow last Friday night, then it snowed all day Saturday adding another three inches of snow.  So below is the view out the north window of the house Sunday morning:

 Eleven hours later I took about the same shot:

Snow doesn't last too long in the Spring.  Oh well.  The temperature got down to 19°F, which is pretty cold for Spring.  Most of the trees lost all of their leaves to the cold, but I am pretty sure they will grow a new set of leaves.  I haven't checked to see if any peaches survived.  The older tree had set fruit, so I guess there is a small chance it survived.