The Problem with Living Here | JIM FURLONG

I broke my snow blower last week. There is a rope caught up and tangled in it and, well, it stretched a belt. Here it is approaching the end of March and I’m dealing with that.

You do not have to be told that the weather here on the east coast of the island of Newfoundland is something not to be counted on. Who knows how the wind will blow out here. It can get you down. I’m writing this on the back end of March and, today, snow and blowing snow is flying around like it’s the second week of January. I had to use my snow rake to get the snow off the flat part of my roof. We used to say “March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb” but that isn’t true anymore. This year it came in like a lion and is going out just like another lion.

I just broke the blower trying to fling that heavy snow-mixed-with-rain and a piece of rope crap across the garden. Three weeks ago I was sat out in the sun having a beer up by the shed. I foolishly mentioned that it was very Spring-like. Silly me.

You know this unsettling weather thing has moved in right across Newfoundland and Labrador as well. The big snow-mobile festival in Labrador had to be cancelled in mid-event because of warm temperatures. Who would have thunk that? Once you could depend on stuff.

Another example is Marble Mountain, on the west coast, usually opened around Boxing Day. You can forget about that. It has something to with the global warming that has everything turned upside down. I suspect it has and it is what’s turning the barometer upside down.

Last year, for instance, the ice on Topsail Round Pond, down behind my house, was like a sheet of glass in December. You could walk across the pond to my son’s place. My family was skating there lots of times with a good time had by all. Now? No way. Snow, thaw, cold, warm, rain and snow again. Everything except lightening has happened but it is early.

The weather out east has always been a bit dodgy. You may remember that before Snowmageddon 2020 the largest single 24 hour snowfall in St, Johns had been  on an April day about a decade and a half ago. I also told you in a previous encounter that my friend Bruce and myself had once played outdoor tennis in Bowring Park on the 13th of February one year. It had rained and melted snow on the courts and the next day was warm and dry. 

That is the way it is around St. John’s. It is not like it used to be.