the mellow tigger's musings

If you can't tell from the trees, then the cats are a sure giveaway. Cold weather has arrived in Minnesota.

I took these photos from the living room window last month. We had a brief period of cold weather that turned all the leaves. One of these days, I really should do a time lapse series from a fixed camera.



Since then, I saw sleet for about 20 seconds, I saw a dusting of snow, and my car slid twice on icy unsalted bridges during cold days. For the most part, though, we've had above-freezing weather during the days.

My car windshield got a nick a few weeks ago from a rock. I scheduled someone to repair the windshield with their magic resin, but 24 hours before they were due to arrive, the temperature sank down to the -13C/+8F range, and that single spot of damage cracked across the whole width of the windshield. I had the entire glass replaced that day. I see frost on my car windshield this morning, but the temperature is forecast to get almost up to freezing today.

The cats make it obvious that cold weather has arrived. Both cats enjoy sitting on top of my high-airflow computer case. The top panel is made up entirely of airholes (like the metal screen on microwave ovens), so all the heat from the electronics can flow upward and out. Here you see my old cat, T'Reese, enjoying the warmth from the silicon furnace.

A serious design flaw of this case is the top-located power button. You can't see it in this shot, because T'Reese is sitting on it. As the cats step up or down from this perch, they often hit the button and prompt immediate shutdown of my pc. Unhappy me. I've developed the habit of opening a Notepad text document with nothing in it, just so it prompts me briefly if I want to cancel the shutdown or not. It gives me the seconds that I need to halt the shutdown before I lose my pc game or browser window.

T'Reese also has the habit (only during cold weather) of laying down in bed at night at my feet. She started doing that again last week. Not to be outdone, Hope has learned to cover herself in blankets by digging and rolling.

I enjoy winters in Minnesota when the snow arrives late.  The problem with snow here is that it lingers on the ground for months.  The snow usually doesn't begin disappearing from the ground until March or April.  If snow first arrives in October, then it makes a very long and dreary winter of the bland, bright, snowy landscape.  It's almost December this year, though, and still no snow pack on the ground.

I keep saying it, but global warming will be good to Minnesota.

Here are pictures of my cat, Hope, in a variety of poses.





I like these two because they show off her white upside-down-T on her chest and her Egyptian-mascara black streak off of each eye.


Stop playing pc games, and turn off that light!


I'll explain more later on why I took this series of photographs.