Snow Archives

February 19, 2016

Old McKendree Wearing White

It dawned on me the other day that I had photographed Old McKendree Chapel in just about every season, but never when it was dusted with snow. Since I was already as far as the Benjamin F. Hunter Cabin, it was only right to venture down the lane to the chapel, its grounds and across the road to the cemetery.

Old McKendree Chapel photo gallery

Click on any photo to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move through the gallery.

Old McKendree Chapel cemetery 02-09-2016

February 17, 2016

Visited by Celestial Dandruff

It must have snowed pretty good while I was sleeping, because there was a lot more snow on my car and on the ground than when I went to sleep Monday night. Just before I sat down to lunch, I peeked out the window to see something between a light rain and a drizzle falling. I thought there might be a speck of white mixed in from time to time, but it was mostly splashing when it hit the ground.

Just as I was finishing lunch, I happened to glance out of the kitchen with the corner of my eye. Holy Crapola!!! The sky is full of God dandruff! (As always, click on the photos to make them larger.)

(I’m of the belief that every person should be allocated a finite number of exclamation marks to be used over their entire lifetime; when they’re gone, then it’s back to periods for everything. I spend my exclamation points sparingly, but today’s snow was worth every one of them.)

Biggest flakes I’ve ever seen

I ran to the living room door to see if the stuff was falling in both the front AND back yards. Yep, it sure was.

I told Wife Lila that the flakes were as big a quarters. Then, I amended it to say they were the size of quarter-sized marbles. They weren’t just two-dimensional like you cut out of construction paper in grade school; these were the Real Deal. Wednesday is Wife Lila’s birthday, by the way.

Overcoming inertia

It took me awhile to overcome inertia. In Florida, things are easy: you pull on a polo shirt, grab a pair of shorts and slip on some sandals. Up north, you have to consider layers. And, they have to go on in a certain order, particularly if you wear suspenders.

Just as I was pulling out of the driveway, the Low Fuel light came on. You do NOT want to be running around on potentially slick streets with that thing blinding you.

Gas is usually cheaper in Jackson and Fruitland, so I headed that way with a brief stop at North County Park.

By the time I got to Jackson, the big flakes had stopped. The show was over. I shot a little video, but it wasn’t impressive enough to spend the time editing it. Like I always say, “Some days you make pictures; some days you make memories.”

The nice thing about this snow storm was that it provided really nice eye candy for about an hour or two, then changed to rain, which kept the streets from getting slick.

There’s a rumor that we may be seeing temperatures in the mid-60s by the weekend. Maybe I shouldn’t have ordered that load of firewood to show up this week, although I don’t think we’re done with winter yet or that it’s done with us.

Thank you, Mother Nature. I really enjoyed your show. You really SHOULD do something about that celestial dandruff, though.

February 11, 2016

Time Is Running Out

There’s quite a difference in the way the Benjamin F. Hunter Cabin looked February 9, 2016, and the way it looked when I photographed it in August 2014. Click on the photos to make them large enough to see how much the building has deteriorated in less than two years.

The cabin in August 2014

I did a post December 13, 2014, that explored some of the history of the reconstructed log cabin on the road to Old McKendree Chapel.

Has been treated with benign neglect

The structure, which was built outside Sikeston in the 1880s and taken apart in the 1980s, was a preservation project undertaken by Southeast Missouri State University in the 1990s. It quickly became a house without a home, with the university proposing, then discarding a number of possible locations.

Gravity will take its toll

The story I did in 2014 said Dr. Bonnie Stepenoff continued work on the cabin in the mid 1990s, including repairs on the roof, chinking and daubing the walls, placing a gate around the property, reglazing the windows, and conducting additional student research.

From the amount of light streaming through the gaps between the logs, I would say most of that chinking has fallen out. The roof has holes in it, and you can see some of the logs have fallen out just between 2014 and this week. Unless something is done fairly soon, gravity is going to take over and all that will be left will be a stack of rotting logs.

Of course, that’s the university’s approach to preservation: neglect a property until you can say that fixing it will cost more than tearing it down.

February 10, 2016

It’s Still Winter

Don’t let those warm days fool you. Winter still has a few tricks up her sleeve. I went to bed uncharacteristically early Monday night because I didn’t want to start a fire to take the chill off the basement where I work. I woke up around 3 in the morning craving a snack and saw that it was spitting snow. When I went to bed around 4, it was coming down pretty hard and blowing across the street.

This was the view outside my car windshield this morning. (Florida Friends, you can click on the photos to make them larger. They will NOT radiate cold through your computer monitor, so it’s OK.)

A look to my left

My jacket and stocking cap were in the back seat, though, so I punched the button that should have opened the sliding side door. No luck. I guess enough ice had formed to make the door think there was some kind of obstruction and it wouldn’t play nicely until the van warmed up a bit.

I let the motor run for a few minutes to let it and my heated seat chase the cold away. My side windows were fairly clean.

And, a look to the right

The yellow 1977 Datsun pickup truck is still in the driveway. We sold it to a young couple who are going to fix it and drive it around Cape, but they are busy closing on a new house. I told them they could leave it here until they had a driveway of their own to park it in.

It’s funny how many people use that as a landmark when giving directions.

I see the forecast for Wednesday night calls for a 22% chance of snow. I hope it gets cold enough to freeze the ground. I need to order another load of firewood.

Tag: Snow