I have always been fascinated by harsh environments. The relentless heat of the Atacama Desert. The cold, windy, thin-aired regions of Tibet. The remote isolation of Pitcairn Island. The International Space Station. Someday, the Moon or Mars. In particular, I wonder about the people who choose to live in these places.
From my comfortable perspective, I can’t imagine making the sacrifice to live in the extreme. You’d have to be very motivated, either by the desire to conduct research or the ability to make insane amounts of money, or you’ve been given no other choice. That last bit would be my definition of hell.
I can’t imagine being born on an island in the most distant reaches of the ocean, and never knowing anyplace else because you’re too poor to leave. I would hate to feel trapped and miserable in perpetual snow or heat. It really demonstrates how weak we are, when faced with the forces of nature. I feel really grateful for my circumstances.
Well, until yesterday. Nature reared up and slapped us in the face on that day. A snowstorm beyond all reckoning. So bad, in fact, that I couldn’t make the 25-mile commute to work, even if I stuck to the major arterial roads. The slightest hill had cars spinning out. The on ramps to highways were full of collisions and abandoned cars. I’m glad we were stocked up on groceries, because I wouldn’t have even wanted to go a block down the street to the grocery store in this mess.
Sometimes you choose the environment, and sometimes the environment chooses you.
Now is the perfect time to stay at home and read a good book. Try mine! http://amzn.to/2mlPVh5
The View from a Drawbridge 
The Aleutians. It wasn’t a choice, and it was hell. Even apart from adolescence being hell to start with… There ought to be a law against moving kids around too much, and another one ensuring frequent visitation rights to places as well as people that one is attached to. For starters.
Is the purpose of that rain chain to slow down the force of the dripping and reduce erosion at the bottom?
The people from back east who grouse about our reaction to snow should recall that there’s different kinds of snow and ours is heavy and wet and a real nuisance. I don’t recall just what kinds we had out in west Anus Mundi, but there was enough of it we had worked out ways to deal with it. You hang in there. Soon enough we will be bellyaching about the heat again, and the smoke. Keep up the good work!
We removed our downspout and replaced it with the rain chain because it’s prettier to watch. They work just as well as your normal, ugly downspout.
The Aleutians. Wow. Yeah, I bet it was hell. Off to go shovel the entire freakin’ bridge. Send out good thoughts for my lower back.
Shovel in increments. Rest often and hydrate. I’ve done my share of snow shoveling and it’s easy to over do it. Stay warm and use it as an excuse for a back rub and extra Valentine💘 cuddles when you get home.
We need to be prepared for weather extremes sooner than expected because Gaia isn’t following our climate change timeline. She has her own agenda that we puny humans never understood or we wouldn’t have messed with mother nature in the 1st place. Putting this current weather extreme in perspective… https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/13/asia/japan-earthquake-intl/index.html …it could have been a 7.1 aftershock of a 9.0 quake. Just pray you don’t get hit with an extreme meteorological and seismic event at the same time. I’ll stop here and not bring up astrological events… just saw Greenland. 🙂
Speaking of fireballs, saw my first verified meteor event last week and didn’t even have to leave the house. It was surreal and breathtaking. I reported it to the American Meteor Society along with 32 others from California, Nevada and Utah. Our reports pretty much matched. If you see one report it here https://ams.imo.net/members/imo/report_intro they will analyze it and send you a link for results.