Over Icy If Not Troubled Waters

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It was a three-dog night. We came up one short. But there will be other opportunities yet to get up after midnight and throw an extra piece of oak on a fire that, despite its good intentions, is not quite equal to the task of keeping Herself warm til morning.

This weekend’s cold will be a glancing blow compared to the persistent “polar vortices” of the past two winters. There is that.

But it sets the stage for Monday’s sour-grapes smack on the cheek to love-dovey snuggles of Valentines. Check it out on the Weather Channel. This one looks likely to bring our first significant threat of ice. Doh!

Weather Underground is calling for 8-12 inches Monday–of ice pellets. Hunker down, homies.

And reminder to self: pull the board Sunday afternoon before it gets frozen in place with melt-flood waters flowing over it. How many times have we retrieved this plank from some distance closer than our creek crossing to the Atlantic? We’ve been lucky.

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fred

Fred First holds masters degrees in Vertebrate Zoology and physical therapy, and has been a biology teacher and physical therapist by profession. He moved to southwest Virginia in 1975 and to Floyd County in 1997. He maintains a daily photo-blog, broadcasts essays on the Roanoke NPR station, and contributes regular columns for the Floyd Press and Roanoke's Star Sentinel. His two non-fiction books, Slow Road Home and his recent What We Hold in Our Hands, celebrate the riches that we possess in our families and communities, our natural bounty, social capital and Appalachian cultures old and new. He has served on the Jacksonville Center Board of Directors and is newly active in the Sustain Floyd organization. He lives in northeastern Floyd County on the headwaters of the Roanoke River.

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