September is long gone and October is starting to show it's teeth in Saskatchewan. September was a very warm month for us. Many communities set record highs several days in a row in mid-month. I recall seeing a 32C the odd time and a couple of towns hit 34-35C. David Philips, senior climatologist at Environment Canada, said on the news at the end of the month that September could turn out to be the warmest month of the year for Saskatchewan, the first time that has ever happened. It's no surprise because most the year was much colder than normal. The grass really didn't start growing until about mid-May.
But now it's October and we're getting arctic weather pushing down. Last night we had our first real hard frost. When I got up at 7am it was -6C. When I went out at 8am to start the semi truck I had to give it a shot of ether (starting fluid) to get it started. She was a bit stiff! At least I didn't have to worry about muddy trails because the mud was all frozen!
At lunch time I had to take the boys into Moose Jaw as Mitchell had his first swimming lessons with fellow homeschoolers. The weather was cool, but not too bad. We did some shopping and then went to swimming lessons. After lessons we went to Dairy Queen for a snack. Blizzards are yummy but only if you eat them and not drive them. That's what we hit about halfway home.
Moose Jaw is about 60 miles away from our farm. We saw the odd little snow flurry in the first half of the trip home but I'd say around Mortlach we were well into the snow storm. We got past Parkbeg and headed down Secretan Hill and that's where I started to get nervous. It was starting to stick to the highway. As I went back up the other side I felt the van wiggle slightly. Now there are some ruts in the highway and it was quite windy out so it might not have been slippery but I backed off anyway, from about 100kph (which was down from the 110kph I was doing when I left Moose Jaw) to about 60 by the time I got through the twisties which weave through the hills around Secretan area. Once I was out of that I sped up a bit, maybe 80-90 until I got to Chaplin. It wasn't sticking on the highway quite as bad here, but we're lucky to have a gravel road from Chaplin to the farm which I took. Yeah, it's muddy but it's not going to be nearly as slippery as a slushy highway!
Anyway, we're home safe and sound and I'm curled up by the warm glow of my computer monitor with Rush pounding from the speakers. Life is good. :)
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