I know, right? I was working in the garage tonight wearing only a t-shirt.
Eta: and pants, just for the record.
whew.
We had rain today too. Not much, but enough to make us wonder if it was really December.
Sorry folks. I had to delay winter this year due to a backlog at work that has been sucking my free time down the drain, so I’ve been needing time get my vehicle ready for winter. I’m just about done, so please be patient for another week.
Well, get on it, would you?
Piper Cub is expressing discontent at the lack of snow for sledding!
And let’s not even talk about the ski lessons we signed him up for!
I feel your pain, but sorry, no can do. I still need to do a bit of suspension work before the snow flies, but its raining today, so I have delay the snow until the weekend.
You have ten options:
- Do what our telemark ski school occasionally does for a November promo: move loads of arena ice scrapings from Zamboni dumps to a slope.
- Do what one of our ski stores did: blow snow with a home-made snow maker (water hose + air compressor/air hose + valve + some pvc tubing including joints and an end cap with a small hole drilled in it).
- Do what my neighbours do: buy a family season pass at a resort in the Rockies and tag-team drive across the flat-land that you call home.
- Go grass skiing: Grass Ski Championships - YouTube
- Go sand skiing: | SAND SKIING | 📍Vulcano Etna | Valle del Bove - YouTube
- Go leaf skiing: Candide Thovex – quattro® - YouTube
- Go surf skiing: Honolulu Star-Bulletin Sports U.S. Ski Team Women's Video Challenge -- California Dreamers - YouTube
- Go pavement skiing: World Championship Inline Alpine Giant Slalom 2014 - YouTube
- Go skree skiing: Borrowdale Fell Race 2009 - YouTube
- Relocate semi-annually by hemisphere.
My grandfather used to tell the story about how he had to drive around Calgary to get chairs for his wedding. It was around this time of year, back in 1932 or 1933. He said that he was in shirt sleeves at the time.
Yes, but that could’ve been a chinook, eh? I’ve left Edmonton at - 20, flown to Calgary, and was greeted with a temperature in the teens. It’s the most remarkable thing!
It was -20. Your grandfather was a tough bastard.
Nonsense! It’s not normal!! It’s a sign of the impending climate change apocalypse!!! Leo Di Caprio says so!!!
Or not.
“That awkward moment when you have to explain a Chinook to Leo Di Caprio.”
Loch Lomond had to stop blowing snow by my place, so the first alpine race camp for kids is being moved to our southern colony (upper Minnesota’s Lutsen) which is trying to open for this weekend (when it comes to making snow, they are exceptional). I’ll probably head down, for I’m getting cabin fever, but since their new gondola is not quite ready, there will only be one decent run. Sweet bupkuss for cross-country, although I did get in some tracks a few weeks ago thanks to a snowstorm that got lost and landed here.
I love winter skiing. I love spring white water paddling. I love summer lake paddling. I love fall hiking. But for here at the top of the Great Lakes, whoever invented November and the first half of December should be shot and pissed on with cold rain. I have no use for cold rain. There otta be a law.
Used to love the chinooks when I lived in Calgary. A breath of fresh air to say the least. If the temp. went from -30 to -7. the -7 was t-shirt weather. Nothing to do with chinooks, but I noticed once when I traveled from Calgary to Vancouver, +14 in Van (in the rain) felt the same as -14 in Calgary.
It’s a dry cold.
I read that DiCaprio blurb this morning. No Leo, the locals did not say there has never been anything like it. Every winter. Every single winter. I’ve been cycling home from work in shirt sleeves (short shirt sleeves at that) one day and in cold weather gear the next. I threw the kid in the bike trailer one Christmas Eve to ride to the in-laws for dinner. My wife wondered if she would be too cold. But honey, it’s 20 degrees outside.
To Northern Piper’s December rain; does an El Nino affect the middle of the continent?
Finished the work on my vehicle yesterday, so today (Sunday) winter commenced with a nice snowfall, although we’ll hold off for a few more days for the Golden Horseshoe so that my cousin can get in a few more rounds of golf.
I’ll take Canada’s kind of freedom any day. Thanks for the link, Muffin! 
So, you can now buy beer in one of 58 grocery stores in Ontario. Slowly but surely Ontario will catch up to Manitoba when it comes to beer sales.
Will it be pot in the LCBO or pot in the Beer Store, or pot beer and booze in the Macs, all waiting behind the lottery ticket players?
Macs is going away. They are re-branding as Circle K.