Winter Is Here In Manitoba

[Plymouthy Adams]

What did you do that has you sleeping in the doghouse?

[55 Fargo]

I was talkin to my mother about the weather today, it' cold but not as bad as it used to be in the past thanx to global warming. My mother remembers one winter around 1944, when the snow drifts were as high as the tops of some of the smaller trees, maybe 12 feet or so. She even recalls the drifts along the old gravel country highway resembling a tunnel the snow was so high on each side of the road. My mother lived pretty close to school, about 1/2 mile, my dad was walikng 2 miles to a one room country school back in the 1940s.

People were tougher and had tougher lives in those days, my parents both remember life before electricity in there homes, when the family radio ran on a battery, and at my grandparents country general store they had a generator and batteries to light up the store, the gasoline pump, was just that, it was the old style that you pumped up to allow it to free flow, wish I had that one now...........Fred

[PatS....]

"4 March 1966, Winnipeg, Manitoba: Winnipeg's Snowstorm of the Century: Blizzard drops 35 cm (13 inches) of snow with winds blowing at 120 km/h (75 mph), paralyzing the city for two days."

Calgary got the leading edge of this storm, and it fell on a day when the schools were closed for a teachers convention I think, so we got shafted out of a snow day there too.

It took 2 weeks to dig out from that one.

I don't recall a storm that bad since then.

[55 Fargo]

Pat I was 5 years old and I still remember the infamous March the 4th 1966 Blizzard, nothing to date has come close with thye exception of November of 1986. I have pics somehwere of the March 1966 storm, the snow drifts in front of our house were huge and a lot of people couldn't even open there doors and had to jump out of window to get outside. Don't know how many people died as a result of that storm, were generally pretty blizzard wise here in Western Canada.

Interesting thing, 9 months after the Nov 1986 blizzard there was a rise in births at the Winnipeg hospitals, I guess snowstorms do create a romantic environment of sorts............Fred

[Normspeed]

I'm just reliving the good old days before I became a confirmed bachelor. The dogs enjoy it.

What did you do that has you sleeping in the doghouse?

[PatS....]

Pat, next thing you'll tell us was that the walk to/from school was uphill in both directions.....

No, that was my Dad!!!! I feel sorry for him, that musta been tough:D

Of course this was the guy who skipped school when the one room country schoolteacher was their border!!

[1just4don]

We walked over the top of the full grown apple trees EVERY winter. The snow banks were that high.(and hard) never had a fear of breaking off any valuable limbs cause they were ALL covered. breaking off an apple tree limb was a chargable offense,,because we had to eat the apples,,,worms and all,couldnt waste money on sprays and such,,,just added to the protein level of the apple. Only thing worse than finding a worm in your apple,,,was finding half a worm!!!

I live in this same house I grew up in. The apple trees are gone, but I am STILL here!! Roads are graded up better now,(still ALL gravel),,but snowbanks arent NEARLY as deep as the 'old' days!! Dad and mom says back in '48 and '49 they were snowed in from around Thanksgiving till middle of January or February ,,,and had to walk out to get a ride to town on the highway so they could get to work every day and then bring back groceries and other necessities, at night, This was back in the 'outhouse days' besides. We never had an indoor potty till I was in high school, nor an automatic washing machine.(ever use a wringer washer??) You just cant imagine how cold you can freeze delicate parts of your body in an outhouse!!!

[55 Fargo]

That's exactly how my parents were raised, no plumbing inside, no electricity until 1950. When my sister was born in 1955, my parents were very young, they didn't own a washer and dryer yet, my mom washed diapers in the bathtub. But you know they had a car a 1950 Pontiac, my Dad still says it was a good reliable car in it's day.

Right now here at my place 18 miles north of Winnipeg it's -20 with the windchill it's -45, in Winnipeg it's -15 with a -40 windchill.

NOW THAT IS DURN COLD WEATHER I TELL YOU,BUT MY GARAGE IS 30 ABOVE INSIDE WITH ONE OF MY HEATERS COMING ON ONCE IN A WHILE TO KEEP IT THAT WAY........................Frozen Rockwood

[knighthawk]

A favorite expression I always heard was " the snow was as high as the telphone poles ". I do remember some pretty tall snow banks, we had to wait untill the milk truck came in ( every other day ) cause he had a snowplow on it , and would plow a path down to the barn , then out by the house. And we could slide down some of the piles he made. One of these milk trucks , I remember had a small sander unit in front of each rear wheel, filled with chicken grit, which is just crushed granite. ....................It's fuuny what a guy remembers ....................

[Normspeed]

The house I grew up in in NJ had 2 coal stoves for heat. There was a shed next to the house and we kids would have to go out through the snow and fetch coal for the night. My dad installed an oil furnace and hot water heat around 1955. for the first time we had hot tap water. Pure luxury!

[55 Fargo]

Its -33 right now and is -50 with the windchill, went out to check my dog, she has an insulated dog house with a 250 watt infared brooder light in there she was warm to the touch and her paws were warm. It doesn't feel that cold too be honest. The garage was 25 above inside with one heater turned on it' lowest setting, it barely comes on like that but keeps the garage from getting too cold..........Fred ps it's -17 in Grand Forks ND, which is only 135 miles south of here what a difference a few miles can make

[knighthawk]

30 below ??? Man, I couldn't take it !! yesterday, here in S E Kansas it was 55 degrees, about 5 or 6 pm ! then all of a sudden it got cold and started raining. This morning, with that Northern Canadain wind it's 25 degrees and RAINING. Obviously, everything is covered with ice, and going to turn snow. With my luck it'll probabley get down to 30 below here also !!!! I think it's going to go down in the teens tonite, but I'm not going to look, as I get a chill just thinking about it !!!! .............. I don't have any dogs outside, just some chickens, already need to have a heat lamp on them, better not get to minus anything !! Can eggs still be used after they are frozen ? That's assumming the chickens are still alive ?

[Plymouthy Adams]

I grew up in a very rural setting. School was just as short walk from the house..grades 1-5 same room..same teacher. In winter we skated on the frozen creeks and ponds that was by the school. We pulled our sleds to school with us and rode them off the mountain at recess and lunch. Spring time we would fish during this time. Ride our wagons off the same hill we sledded on in winter. Wrestling was a way of life and as such what we called fun, would get expelled or the cops called on you today. 5th grade..seven of us..4 boys and three girls. I had it good growing up and am evermore thankful for it..we had good times. Never a dull moment and we did not have video games or mom and dad chaffuering us to Chucky Cheese or Mickey D's etc...these places did not exist..we had bon fires and weenie roasts..our house was the collection place for the kids..we were out and about all the time with games well into the night. Kids today don't have the imagination to entertain themselves. And on a sadder note..neither do they have the safe enviroment we had growning up. It is a sad time these days my friends..

[knighthawk]

I remember putting my boots or overshoes, in the mailbox, before getting on the bus, then I'd put them on when I got home , cus it wasn't ''cool'' to wear boots to school !!! Then try to explain to Mom, why my good shoes were wet !

[knighthawk]

22 degrees today freezing rain. Been raining all day, same forcast thru Sunday, lot's of ice build up on everything !!!! At least it's not 30 below yet !

[1just4don]

Definiton of lonliness---going to one room country school all 9 grades one room-same teacher. Total of about 10-12 kids in all classes together. Played ball or tag with all the way from kindergarteners to 8th grade,mostly grown ups. I never had another boy within four grades up or down from me!!! And girls that age dont LIKE boys!! Kids tended to clump in groups of similiar age, similiar(girls or boys).. I was left alone!!'Unless' we were playing group games. Needless to say, thats why my social skills are sorely lacking!!

The socially unkept,,

--just don--

PS. Today was about 0* and wind chill of 20-30 below. 2 days ago it was 60* or so!!

[Plymouthy Adams]

Man..must have been rough being a only kid in school that was your age..feel for you there bubba...tell me this, as an older student, did you actually help teach younger kids reading and math etc..I did..lot of fun..also one of the earliest government jobs was the paycheck I recieved as the school janitor..would sweep the floor, clean the chalk board, empty the trash and burn it..then haul in water for the next day..yep ..no running water..and again, I would not have traded this experience for anything. We had to have a school bell and it was rung daily, especially for recess and

lunch as we boys could be way back on the mountain goofing off.

[1just4don]

There was alot of older kids teaching younger kids, specially when student counts were sorta high, those years. You get all nine grades full and several slower students scattered around and they really needed it. You also got a onstant review of other kids lessons as class was held aloud in the same room, on folding chairs up by the teachers desk so 'everybody' heard everything, every day.

Cant exactly remeber how those chores were dealt out. most shared duties of some type. Pumping the water from the outside manuel handle pump was a daily need. We had a 'crock' jar we put it in, inside the school, had a button on it like a big water cooler has now, to get a drink,,,everybody had their own cup. I 'think' the boys had one in their coat room and one in girls coat room, sure couldnt get those coats too close together in those days. I think those coat rooms turned into inside bathrooms the last couple years.

I musta been really hard on that old school cause my last year of it was the last year it ran!!! I still have the pictures of Abe Lincoln and George Washington that always hung on the back wall. On the back of the pics it is signed by all the kids and the teacher on the year it was bought.(like 20-30 years previous. Familiar family names written on there. Wish I would have bughten that crock water cooler!! Too young and dumb for that.

Do remeber the sweeping compound we always used in the big metal cans. And having to scoop coal into the furnace a couple times a day from the coalroom. And the 'cave' constructed in all concrete for storm shelter. We always played some game over the top of that, like tag, but if you got taged then you stayed on top and caught others going over it without getting caught. or the one that got caught then was free to play with the others jumping up and over the concrete cave without getting touched. Was always arguements as to whether somebody 'got' touched or not. Playing on top of a rounded piece of concrete,,,who would thunk these days. Wish I could 'member the name of the game we invented for this.

other game we invented was 'jumping ' out of the swings the furtherest,,,we could really fly, as we got older and more experienced. or swing the highest without the chains slacking enough to knock us out of the swing on the down snap! We had huge swings made of heavy wall pipe cemented into the ground,, those darn chains sure bit the fingers tho!! And a BIG board seat. We always thought we could go fast enough to go right around the circle without falling off,cant remeber anybody doing that,always fell first!

The sweeping can empties, I remember, used to be perfect homes for the 13 stripe ground squirels we drowned out of their holes and captured. Pumped all water by hand, pour it down the hole and catch the squirrel in a bucket, coming back up . had a whole can full of those pesky ground squirrels and the teacher then caught us, and we had to let them go. drat!!!

Spring time was always ball for recess. Ever play ball on a field with NO left field. was long and narrow and hitting a ball to left field was out-of-bounds. Nothing past third base but tall cottonwood trees and the road past which was out of bounds. Had to pitch real soft and easy for the little tykes, and tricky and fast for the big ones. Sometimes the same games lasted for days, innings were few and long and outs were hard to come by. used disc blades for bases. Best part of the OLD days is I was younger then!!!

[knighthawk]

I went to schools that were ''in town'', we moved every couple years, from farm to farm. In the 5th or 6th grade , it was in a small towm, we had 2 classes in each room, I think in the 7th and 8 th grades, we had 12 or 13 in each class...............................Weather ;;;;; we had about2 inches of freezing rain and sleet build up on everything !! You can actually walk on the snow without even making a dent, still raining today ( light mist ), heavy freezing rain and sleet forcast for Sunday,-2 for Tues !!!!! That's 2 BELOW ZERO !!!!! And staying the cold untill about Thursday. I'll be dead by then !!!!!

[55 Fargo]

Tim, my Dad was a one room school house teacher back in 1950, he had a local kid who was his janitor and was 15 in grade 6. This kid was bigger than my Dad and was always misbehavin, well one day my dad gave him a whoopin with the strap, the next day the strap was missing and presumed burned, you see this kid was the janitor, my Dad gave up school teaching after that year and went to work in the lumber business and remained in the lumber business until 2005 a career that spanned some 54 years.....The Rock

[knighthawk]

We got about three inches of frozen ice and sleet on everything, been lots of freezing rain ! Luckily, mo power lines down here, but in Tulsa , Olkahoma about an hour away, there are many, many, lines down. I concern here is how much the roof can hold ! Getting down to about Zero tonite, high's in 20's....

[55 Fargo]

Larry what happened with your Texas warm front, sounds like your in the middle of a arctic high pressure system forceing the jet stream further south.

Last night it was down to 26 below at my place, Winnipeg City only 15 miles south of here was around-15, Gimli on Lake Winnipeg a small resort town about 30 miles north of my place went down to -40. Other parts of Canada have had very nice winter days, ie Windsor Ontario was 50 and so was Niagra Falls , this was a couple of days ago. Vancouver BC, has weather about the same as Seattle, as they are only 100 miles or so apart, but even this year it has been colder there, but nothing like it gets here............Fred

[knighthawk]

-40 , that's 40 BELOW ? I can not even imagine be'ing that cold.. I was nervous when they originally said it was supposed to be -7 tonight ! Now only about 0, so is that considered a ''warm spell '' ???? Cold north wind today, but I haven't got out my heavy jackets yet ! At lwast I did have my wood pile covered , so can keep the stove in the house and small one in the shop ( barn ) going. Was still 50 in the shop this morning . My only consellation (?) is that I think my freinds in Texas are getting some of this !.........

[55 Fargo]

Larry know doubt when it's -30 or -40 it feels real cold. but believe it or not sometimes -5 or -10 with a wind is worse than a calm -30 morning, IMHO. When it gets below -30 I find breathing feels a litte different, but if your dressed for it, I never feel cold, its about -5 right now, sunny and no wind at all...........Fred

[knighthawk]

Well, I guess I agree (kinda ) about being dressed for it, I did keep my warm clothes from whem we lived ''up there''.. Haven't had to wear my big down filled ''Packers " jacket for about 10 years ! But, it's a strong north wind today, kinda cuts right throu. Guess I better break down and put heavier jacket on !