UGHHHHH.....

If any normal place in the world had an eighty degree temperature increase in four days, I think people would die of heat stroke. Here in Alaska, we just warm up to five degrees less than our average summer temperature.

Last week it was about -20F here at the house but ten miles down the hill in Willow it got down to -45 degrees. Today it was 45 degrees above in Willow and pouring rain. We lost almost all of our snow here due to wind and rain. A pipe froze and broke the day before I came home from work so I had Sandi turn off the water. I picked up the fittings to fix the pipe on the way from the airport hoping to have the water and heating system back in service Wednesday night. Unfortunately when I told Sandi to turn off the water I forgot to tell her to turn off the radiant heating system controller. This small oversight on my part led to a burnt up (not so cheap) circulation pump. Live and learn I guess. Luckily it was forty degrees for the three days that the radiant heating system was down otherwise things could have gotten ugly in a hurry.

We spent today trying to chip up our glare ice driveway, pump the water out of the barn, and cut up the spruce tree that blew down across the fence in the horse corral. I took my snowmachine out to survey the loss of snow and it may as well have been a jet ski. I'd have been better off wearing a dry suit instead of the down jacket that I was wearing. All of the lakes around here have slush and standing water on top of the ice and there are huge puddles everywhere. I was thinking a snorkel might have been a good idea.

Hopefully the temperature will drop a little and all of this precipitation will turn to snow instead of the rain we are currently getting.

Pray for snow!