Category Archives: weather

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Snow piles up, design tweaks, and Beagle-mania

JackietongueI am in the midst of tweaking the design for Greater Grafton, so don’t be surprised if it looks a little different every time you log in. The old template wasn’t functioning well on tablets and phones, which is kind of key for a news site in 2013 (as opposed to 2009, the last redesign, back when I didn’t have an iPhone and iPads didn’t exist).

I’ve added an easy way to get to the Greater Grafton Facebook page (like us!), updated the About page, and I’m going through all the bookmarked sites making sure all the links still work (ack, Jeff Barnard’s Wormtown Taxi is now porn! I imagine he’s laughing in the afterlife). If you want your site included, shoot me an email at greatergrafton@gmail.com. That’s also the email for anything you need publicized as I try to rebuild Grafton’s online community.

Meanwhile outside, my husband reported Millbury Street had about five inches of snow on top of it. It’s nasty out there. We have about 15 inches of snow, which is a problem when you have a dog that is only 15 inches high.

Yeah. Part of the Greater Grafton design now: I measure snow depth by beagle. This is Jackie O., who we adopted from the Tufts University Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine just before Christmas. For the first 18 months of her life, Jackie was part of the Tufts beagle colony, which is used to train veterinary students and provide animal subjects for research.

Colony beagles make wonderful pets. As you can see, Jackie is absolutely adorable, with a few odd quirks: she was afraid of the snow during her first snowstorm (she now happily romps), she had never climbed stairs, she spends more time on her hind legs than any dog I’ve ever seen and, rather than greet car rides with joy, she froths heavily at the mouth and usually vomits. Taking her to the Tufts Farm Field, as a result, can be a little challenging, and that’s before you even factor in that she’s a beagle, and they tend to follow their noses.

In any case: we are now at snow alert: beagle buried status here in Grafton. Tonight’s elementary school staff basketball game is canceled, and the Grafton Country Store is reporting on Facebook they’ve closed for the day because there are just no customers out there. Stay warm, stay safe!

P.S. I wrote this entire post while on hold trying to file for unemployment. I’m still on hold. Sigh.

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Let the countdown to spring begin!

March 1, regular as clockwork, is a special day in Grafton. It’s the day the countdown to spring officially begins.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let’s just hope the snowbanks are gone on April 1 — they’re going to make the inevitable lines even more awkward than normal!

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Can you stand the excitement?

Hot enough for you?

This week has definitely shown me I cannot live in a climate that’s hot all the time. Remind me of this during the winter when I’m grumbling about snow days. I can’t bear to go near the stove, my husband wants absolutely nothing to do with the grill. No one can sleep and everyone is snappish. Oh, and even though it feels like summer just started, the kids are going back to school after one more week of camp!

Anyway, I just wanted to acknowledge that I met the fabulous Susan from MySouthborough last night, and she hooked me up with some photo editing software that’s going to make covering Grafton a lot more fun because — allegedly — it can edit video shot by the Greater Grafton camera. You may recall, I’ve had some problems in that area.

I know! I thought I was just going to have to continue ignoring the “record” button and not take the camera to its true limits. I will — fingers crossed — be experimenting with this over the weekend and I’ll hopefully have something to show you.

In any case, I was thrilled to finally meet Susan — between my need to cover my town and her need to cover her town, it’s been crazy — and the happy upgrade of my software was just a bonus. We talked about the fun challenges that come with creating a readable news site and, looking at her site again today, I definitely think I need to give at least the logo here some sprucing up (my new Greater Grafton goal is to get back to posting at least once a day during the week, if only to give Bob C. something to comment on. Bob! How have you been?).

And I’ll wrap this up with a bonus post within a post, which is inspired by “Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading” by Lizzie Skurnick. Lizzie does the “Fine Lines” feature on Jezebel, my favorite time-killing blog, and while I love her for making me remember the terror of Lois Duncan books and the thrill of discovering Judy Blume, what’s making me all-0ut adore her is her dedication to promoting the worst book that was ever written that every teenage girl has ever read which reminded me, of course, that I’m guilty of doing the same thing…

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Roofing around

I had three, count them, three roofing companies come to my door today offering to take a look at my roof for hail damage. My neighborhood is full of signs from various companies.

I keep hearing, anecdotally, from people around town that their insurance companies actually encouraged them to get their roofs done, even without visible damage, since they were already doing repairs to siding and windows damaged by the hail storm.

Still, I’m not getting my roof inspected by a guy who just knocks on my door. I mean really. Don’t they realize they’re knocking on the door of the family that invests in nothing without extensive research and fact-checking?

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Lying fallow

I keep telling myself that in just a few weeks, I’m going to see green again. I’m going to be able to test out the “foliage” setting on my camera. And maybe two months from now, this is going to be a completely different sight:

community-barn

And speaking of the Community Harvest Project, they’re looking for volunteers starting now. There’s a lot of action going on in the greenhouse getting plants germinated so they’ll be ready in time for the post-frost planting. You can find out about volunteering here.

branch

It’s going to be green soon. I just know it.

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What a difference a day makes

YESTERDAY: Cruised to the grocery store with the car windows down, spent the afternoon lazing on the deck in the sun with just an extra sweatshirt on reading an old Larry Niven. My daughter inspected the multiple green shoots from the iris, crocus and daffodil bulbs we planted last fall.

TODAY: The yard is coated with ice, forecast calls for snow, winter coats, hats and mittens are again adorning my children. My son grumbles that daylight savings means he must, once again, get up in darkness to catch the middle school bus.

Sigh. March. Sigh.