Welcome to April and its “polar vortex!” For the third time in four days we have had some snow and blustery winds. The temperature has also been cold, getting down to about -10 C at night and sometimes not making it up to 0 in the day.
We haven’t had much snow today yet but this video clip gives a bit of a sense of the state of the weather.
We haven’t been too thrilled about this return to winter and so have tried to blame someone for it. The premier of Ontario wouldn’t take our call, she is busy with a truckload of other problems. A staff member at church who had told us that she and her family pray for snow because they are into snow mobiling wouldn’t take the blame either. She said that they stop praying for snow when April comes.
So who to blame? The weather people say that we should blame BC. The explanation is simple: Our Spring “polar vortex” is caused by a massive ridge of high pressure that is anchored over western North America. On the west side of the ridge, warm air is being pumped up from the south to BC. On the east side of the ridge, cold air is being pushed down from the north west to Ontario. So that’s the problem! The warmth in which the west coast has been basking has resulted us shivering under these icy blasts. Blame BC!
Now that we’ve made ourselves feel better by making someone take responsibility for our weather, we have actually found some bright spots to in it. On several days, the sun has come out after the snow squalls were finished and, even though the wind is strong and the temperature is below freezing, the sun has felt quite warm. I have been working outside and got a little bit of a sun burn yesterday.
The chickens don’t seem to mind the weather, as long as they can find some shelter from the wind and have been increasing their egg production. They upped it to six eggs per day when the cold weather started and have held steady at that number.
Amazingly, we still have some flowers in bloom. I would have thought that -10 degrees at night would finish them but, apparently not.


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