It's Not the Cold; It's the ICE

I walk every morning - unless it's pouring down rain or the windchill is colder than -20°.  Seriously, bundle up properly, and it's really not that cold.  But the weather is supposed to be crazy cold around here the next couple days. Schools are closing, libraries are closing, grocery stores are selling out of everything. Well, I don't actually know about the grocery store thing because, unlike all those people who apparently don't have enough food in the house to survive a couple of days, I have plenty of stuff. So I didn't run out to the store.

But it does sound like it's going to be colder than my cutoff temperature of -20° windchill, so I'll have to skip my walk for a couple of days. It'll probably be safer that way. Not because of the cold - because of the ice. It has to snow quite a bit before they do anything with the streets in our neighborhood. What that means is the snow stays until it goes away on its own. Some streets get driven on more, so some clear off sooner. Others clear off a bit during the day and then refreeze at night when the sunshine goes away and the temperatures get colder. And when I go walking in the mornings, the ice and slushy snow make every walk an adventure.

My dad Fred has made a bunch of wooden walking sticks, kinda like this Natural Wood Walking Stick, but more rustic, so I use one of those when the streets are iffy. It's really helpful to have something to hold onto when my foot hits a slippery spot. I probably could have used one of those all those years in Wisconsin, but the streets were usually a lot better. Here a walking stick is a definite need. And sometimes even that isn't good enough - like this morning when my foot hit a hidden patch of ice, and I ended up on my butt. I'm a bit sore... (and hopefully no one was watching)

I'll probably be glad to stay inside tomorrow morning and avoid that crazy cold windchill.

Crazily enough, we're supposed to have temperatures in the 50s by Sunday and Monday. That ought to clear off those streets. At least until the next snowfall. Or freezing rain.