Unseasonable weather, again

We had some excitement last Friday when Terry saw a bald eagle land in the fifth oak. He thought it had something in its talons. The eagle stayed there long enough for me to get a picture, which was a relatively long time since I got error messages from my telephoto lens and had to change back to the regular lens. Hence, the rather grainy image.

Bald eagle in the fifth oak

Then came more unseasonable weather. Monday, we woke up to 4” of snow. Our usual group of three tom turkeys is now five.

Five tom turkeys

We don’t know if two have joined the original group, or if the new group is made of this year’s now-grown-up chicks. In either case, they have routinely been coming up to the feeders to clean up the seeds that the goldfinches throw to the ground.

Turkeys under the bird feeder

When I retired, I thought that I could happily stay home on snowy mornings such as this one. Unfortunately, I had an appointment with my eye doctor and had to venture forth. The roads were not good, especially the east-west roads that were getting drifted by the north wind. I took Hilda’s Subaru for the all-wheel drive. It did not seem like the country roads had been plowed. There was no telling exactly where the edge of the road was, so everyone was driving down the middle. It was only a problem when one met an oncoming car. Unwritten protocol demands that both cars slow way down and cautiously move to the side of the road, hoping not to fall off the broken edge of the asphalt.

 I got behind a snowplow going 35 mph on Highway 14. I was glad I’d allowed twice as much time to get to the doctor’s office, since I was going a little over half as fast. It would have been nice if the plow had cleared the road, but the snow had fallen before the ground had a chance to freeze. In these conditions, the first couple of inches of snow melts into slush. The slush freezes into a glacier, especially if it has been driven over. And there we were, driving slowly over a 1” layer of ice. The truck was salting the road from behind as it plowed in front, but because we were following directly, there was no time for the salt to work. My drive home was a little better.

Tuesday morning was wicked cold. The temperature at our house was 4°F with below-zero wind chill. The turkeys did not show up for breakfast. The weather reports kept referring to “record low highs,” which seemed counterintuitive until I figured out that it meant the high temperature of the day was colder than ever recorded. Again, I had appointments and had to venture out. Who knew that there would be this kind of weather in November? Not me.