Snowclipse
19 Feb
This entry was published on February 19, 2014 at 7:16 am. It’s filed under Alberta, Farm, Farming, Memories, Northern Alberta, Photography, Prairie Winter, Rural Alberta, Snow, Winter and tagged Alberta, Dawn, Farming, Farms, Northern Alberta, Photography, Rural Memories, Snow, Winter.
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Eyes of a Dragon 
Amazing color to this, kind of bluish-grey. Bleak but beautiful. Is there a story behind it? Do I see teacupping (did I get that right) tracks?
Just a spectacular December morning in Northern Alberta a few years ago. Spectacular weather patterns all year round here, including the Northern Lights and … even a tornado once!!! And yes, tea-cupping tracks there too! This field is a brilliant yellow, when planted with canola in the summer! A very, very special place.
I live in tornado alley and have never seen a tornado, although I dream of them now and then. Never seen the Northern Lights either, other than in pictures. Sounds like a special place in both seasons.
Been through a tornado too! I lived in Minnesota (when I was in Grade 3!!!) and 2 twisters came through near Rochester, where we were living! And Central Alberta has had QUITE a few tornadoes. I once took off in a jet, with a tornado about 2 miles away About as close to being in the Space Shuttle at launch, as I will ever get!
Im surprised tornadoes make it that far north. The airport was open? Usually they shut down when the supercells are in full force. Did you see or hear it?
Tornadoes have danced around me but never more than 3 miles away and I have never seen one in person. I would love to see one someday….at a safe distance! Until then…the Weather Channel!
I had just boarded, on open air tarmac…and we took off like a bat out of … Grande Prairie! No idea what had happened, other than …’Cool!’. In Edmonton, they asked me what it was like to take off so close to a .. tornado! They hadn’t told us that wee fact on take-off! Not something I would pay to sit in First Class for!
Wow! Great conversation story to wow the ladies with. Yes I think you should have gotten a discount on that seat for sure, or at least allowed a bird’s eye view of the tornado! In my head I have imagined chasing one sometime….although that isn’t on my bucket list, Im too chicken methinks! I do love the tornado shows…in a hands-over-my-eyes kinda way…..Im sure I will someday see one…right before I faint dead away. While this is TMI, you will laugh when I say that I NEVER sleep naked. Gotta be prepared at all times to leap to the tornado shelter! No naked Calvin jinks for me!
IMAX recently had ‘Tornado Alley‘ and the fellow who designed and built a special armoured truck/tank actually came to Victoria to discuss the film – WITH the truck! Tragically, he died..chasing tornadoes recently. The tornado in Rochester, Minnesota – we were all in the basement, my brother and I squashed under the mattress with my parents … sitting on top of us for added weight! Yeah. Right. That is going to work! 🙂 And Calvin .. IS a tornado!!!! 🙂
NO! I didn’t know he died! Im so sad! I used to follow this guy and saw some shows with him! Ok, chasing tornadoes is no longer on my vague wish list.
Did you have any fears after this incident? Sounds very frightening. No, I think it was so brave of your parents to have potentially sacrificed themselves for you even if it wasn’t logical. I have a tornado room but it is stuffed to the gills with survival stuff as my husband thinks the world is going to end soon. LOL, we will die from lack of a tornado shelter but someone will be well stocked up….
No fears at all. I had my Superman cape tucked under me, just in case! My cousin lives in Oklahoma City, and has had first hand experience with tornadoes, multiple times. BUT, I do live in … earthquake territory. I have earthquake kits all over the place. 2 Garbage cans outside, a Grab and Go inside, a Stay and Survive inside and a small one in the back of the car.
Im sure tsunami’s are also a threat for you as well, living so close to the ocean. If Mt Ranier goes, I assume you would have fallout from that, at least tsunami wise. Am I making you nervous planning all the ways for your potential demise? LoL
Um, what is an earthquake kit and what the heck can it do for you? Like a 3 day survival pack/med kit?
Tsunami would follow an earthquake, depending on depth, location, strength, etc. I am in a semi-high risk zone here, but there are other areas that would literally liquify with a strong enough earthquake. Not nervous at all. I felt earthquakes in Calgary too. Felt about a dozen or so here. Just go to Earthquakes Canada, and today, at least, look at all the purple dots, around Seattle. Well, I am just above Seattle! 🙂 There is an additional button to zoom in on Western Canada too. Each kit has a purpose. Grab and Go lets you survive for 24 hours – water, snacks, TP. Stay and Survive is about 3 days of survival (water, food, knife, money, cat food, medical kit, etc.). The garbage cans have even more of the same clothing, food, money, water, gear, etc. for a potentially longer period of time.
I think people in earthquake zones are crazy to live there, yet look at me in the middle of tornado alley. Although my all time risk of a direct hit is 1:400 years. You sound prepared. Do you worry about all that preparation getting stolen as most people are not that organized? That is what I have argued over with Brent. We outlay the money only to get our house vandalized when the disaster hits and everything stolen. Yes it is under lock and key but between getting my knees blown off and unlocking the door…I will unlock the door!
Even in Calgary, middle of the prairies … I experienced a full-on earthquake. We live on tectonic plates. Tell me where there ISN’T going to be an earthquake! But, as you might have guessed by now….best place to live in Canada! Nothing will get stolen. I have the big garbage bins (sealed) under my deck, the grab and go is in a nearby closet. The Stay and Survive is accessible, SHOULD I need to return inside, if possible. Not much crime here in Victoria, or at least in Oak Bay, where I am. Right smack dab beside Victoria on the map. Hey, not to worry about ‘stuff’….if you have survived a disaster, then …. you have survived a disaster!
See… you are a glass-is-half-full kinda guy. Now Im not really as fussed over surviving the disaster as I am how to live AFTER it with no food/water/blankies/shelter. Not really a survivalist kinda gal. I definitely look, and have been, pampered! But I guess I will ‘know my own mettle’ if I experience–and survive–one.
If after an earthquake, all I have to worry about is the content percentage of an indestructible glass … I will be thankful! Not so much survivalist as realist. I think of it in the same context as life, house and car insurance.
Well, I am a “worry wort”, and to survive a catastrophe only to die a slow death from dehydration or injuries because there is no water or medical care that can get to me is one of my worst fears! You have a great survivalist mentality. I think “grounded” is a very good term to describe you! And I mean that with the highest praise! You don’t seem to ‘sweat the small stuff’, and I admire people who don’t borrow trouble but live each day to the fullest. Wish that was my ‘bent’.
Still not quite there, but I try to practice ‘don’t worry about what you can’t control‘ .. NOT that it is a “control issue” (FAR from it!), but realistically, only worry about what matters and that you can improve or contribute or commit to. Life is just too short……
Are you sure you aren’t a motivational speaker? You have very sound philosophies of life 🙂 My philosophy is…daily survival. Sleep is bliss, life is a pain in the neck. One never knows what horrors one will face in the day. Having had several horrors happen to me over my lifetime, I struggle with daily fears. Trying to cultivate gratitude into my daily thinking but it isn’t my natural ‘bent’.
Finally..some time this weekend! Motivational speaker? No, I can’t even get my cat to listen to me! 🙂 Be …ONE … with your kibble…. and there go her feline eye rolls! I have had my fair share of tragedies as does everyone I know. Both my parents are now deceased. My dad died in a plane accident when I was finishing up Grade 9. My mom died of leukemia, at home, with all of us holding her hand, after a 2 year battle. I too struggle and try to cultivate gratitude. Not always successful. But then … not always UNsuccessful! I just try to decide what is important, and .. make it so.