maine

Hurricane Lee and Me

I live in Maine, and people keep hearing about Hurricane Lee and Maine, so I suppose it’s no wonder I’ve also been asked “What’s happening with the hurricane?” a fair bit. We don’t get hurricanes here in Maine very often (and it doesn’t look like we’re going to get one this time, either), but I can just update you all at once about what’s up with the storm in my corner of the state. Honestly, I’m not expecting it to amount to much for me. It will be windy. Right now they’re saying wind should top out at 26mph by

Extreme Cold in Maine

Over the weekend, it got pretty darn chilly here in Maine. How chilly? On Friday night, the temperature dropped to 21 below 0F, with a windchill of 50 below. The high never got above 0 during the day, and the wind was vicious the whole time. I love me some winter, but I can pass on the temps that cold. This was the first bout of really cold weather we’ve dealt with since the kitchen renovation. Back before we renovated, we knew where there were potential trouble spots, and we would take measures to avoid frozen pipes there. (“Measures” really

The Eleven Types of Snow

There’s a (wrong) saying out there that the Inuit have a hundred words for snow. They don’t (and for a full explanation, see here), but having lived in Maine for 15 years now, and cleaned up after plenty of snow storms, I can testify that there really are many, many different types of snow. Scientifically, it comes down to what temperature it is when the snow comes down, but when you’re trying to shovel or blow it out of your driveway, you don’t care about any of that. You just care about how long it takes. So I thought I’d

Temperature Free Fall

I just got back from a brief walk outside. It’s 60 degrees at the moment, which for Maine is pretty darned incredible for February 23rd. I was out in short sleeves, and it felt lovely. Of course, tonight it’s supposed to get down to 9 degrees. A 51 degree drop in about 12 hours. And as nice as 60 degrees feels when you’re used to temperatures in the teens, that brief respite can make the return to normal feel that much colder. Another issue with temperatures like this? We’ve got a fair bit of snow on the ground. When it

When Can You Complain about the Cold?

Living in Maine, I’m fairly used to the cold. By this time, I know how to handle most of it. I dress in layers, and my wardrobe has plenty of thick, warm clothes to keep me toasty. Generally speaking, I’d rather be too cold than too hot. My house is mostly set up for the cold, with plenty of insulation. So the cold doesn’t usually bother me. With a couple of exceptions. The first big one is frozen pipes. There are two spots in my house where the pipes can freeze if it gets below zero at night. The first