Rob's Rants

A few weeks ago I wrote about how country people and city people do things differently. This weekend’s weather reminded me once again how true those words are.

We had a rare early-season Nor’easter that dumped record-breaking snow on much of New England.

Really?! This is BEFORE Halloween?

The big problem is that this snow was really heavy and wet, and most of the trees still have their leaves, so the storm snapped off millions of tree branches. There are power outages everywhere … by this afternoon (Sunday, 10/30/2011) the Boston Globe was reporting that 669,000 customers were without power.

We lost power around 6:45 pm on Saturday. It stayed off … for 10 seconds because my whole-house backup generator came on. But my generator has been running for 22+ hours now. My local town news website reports today that we can expect to have no power for the next four days. I may need to beg my propane company for an emergency refill, but that shouldn’t be too much of a problem. As of this morning I calculated that I had at least 50+ hours of generator runtime with my current propane supply. If I am careful about my use I can probably get 72 hours out of it.

But none of this is what made me think about the country people / city people thing. What got me thinking about it was this:

Can you see it in there ... yup, that's my car.

This was what greeted me this morning. My car under the top of an oak tree. Upon closer inspection there didn’t appear to be any real damage. The glass was intact at least. But it was certainly under there.

Here’s a view from the backside:

It's certainly under there alright...

And based on the reactions of a couple of neighbors, I realized this was the perfect symbol of my country/city comparison. Because I realized that when presented with these circumstances…

City people call their insurance company and get the phone book to try and find a tree cutting service for an emergency call. Country people get their 19 year-old chainsaw and just cut their damn car out.

And that’s what I did …

About an hour's work.

Now I can open the door ...

And I owe it all to the fact that I am prepared and have the experience to run a chainsaw without killing myself. Above all I’d like to thank my Stihl 032 AVEQ, which is at least 19 years old.

Never failed me!

So which are you? A country person? Or useless …

Mother Nature whipped out her big ten inch … snowstorm. That’s not really a big one for this area, but it was enough to get the family outside to play in it.

Happy Holidays …

The East Coast is bracing for a winter storm — hopefully a good old-fashioned Nor’easter. My family is on the way to a Christmas Party in New Hampshire this afternoon, but we should be able to time our return to make it back before the weather gets bad. Here’s the map we’re looking at as of 9:45 AM:

This Morning's Weather Map. Created with Weather Defender (http://www.weatherdefender.com)

Looks like it will be a fun day! The National Weather Service forecast for today predicts between 7 and 13 inches of snow. Hopefully I’ll get some good pictures.

Here’s the NWS forecast:

Tonight: Snow, mainly after 10pm. The snow could be heavy at times. Low around 20. Blustery, with a north wind between 11 and 20 mph, with gusts as high as 38 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 5 to 9 inches possible.

Sunday: Snow, mainly before noon. The snow could be heavy at times. High near 23. Blustery, with a north wind between 15 and 21 mph, with gusts as high as 32 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 2 to 4 inches possible.