How cold is it where you are?

[Earth-Angel]

'tis cold!

[MarcM]

46 and raining again.

[Lea]

I live in Oregon so of course we have rain but in the last two months we have also had, two tomatoes about an hour from where I live. That's extremely unusual just don't get them here. We have had terrible wind storms, major flooding, freezing rain and yesterday it snowed like crazy. In between all this the sun has been shining.

It has been a very long winter already and it's not even close to over. All in all this has been some very strange weather for my part of the country. Wonder what will happen next

[The Seeker]

Two... tomatoes?

[Earth-Angel]

Two tomatoes

Tornado's?

[TheLizard]

[Farin]

[The Seeker]

Helpful

[MarcM]

Attack of the killer tomatoes! Attack of the killer tomatoes!

They'll beat you, bash you, squish you, mash you

Chew you up for brunch and finish you off for dinner or lunch!

They're marching down the halls - They're crawling up the walls

They're gooey, gushy, squishy, mushy - Rotten to the core

They're standing outside your door!

Remember Herman Farbage while taking out his garbage

He turned around and he did see tomatoes hiding in his tree

Now he's just a memory!

I know I'm going to miss her - a tomato ate my sister

Sacramento fell today - They're marching in San Jose

Tomatoes are on their way!

[Lucky]

I'd be more frightened of the giant tomatoes than of this

[RonJonSurfer]

Never type a post when you're hungry.

[Lea]

Tornado's?

Yeah that

Glad I was able to amuse you all when I wasn't wearing my reading glasses when I used spell check

[Ken]

The following is by Canadian poet, Robert W. Service...

There are strange things done in the midnight sun

By the men who moil for gold;

The Arctic trails have their secret tales

That would make your blood run cold;

The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,

But the queerest they ever did see

Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge

I cremated Sam McGee.

Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.

Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole, God only knows.

He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;

Though he'd often say in his homely way that "he'd sooner live in hell."

On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.

Talk of your cold! Through the parka’s fold it stabbed like a driven nail.

If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see;

It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.

And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,

And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe.

He turned to me, and "Cap," says he, "I'll cash in this trip, I guess;

And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request."

Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no; then he says with a sort of moan;

"It’s the cursed cold, and it’s got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.

Yet 'taint being dead - it’s my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;

So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains."

A pal’s last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;

And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! He looked ghastly pale.

He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;

And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.

There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,

With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given;

It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: "You may tax your brawn and brains,

But you promised true, and it’s up to you to cremate these last remains."

Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.

In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.

In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,

Howled out their woes to the homeless snows - O God! How I loathed the thing.

And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;

And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;

The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;

And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.

Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;

It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May."

And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;

Then "Here," said I with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum."

Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;

Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;

The flames just soared, and the furnace roared - such a blaze you seldom see;

And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.

Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so;

And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.

It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why;

And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.

I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;

But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near:

I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: "I'll just take a peep inside.

I guess he’s cooked, and it’s time I looked"... then the door I opened wide.

And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;

And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: "Please close that door.

It’s fine in here, but I greatly fear you'll let in the cold and storm -

Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it’s the first time I've been warm."

There are strange things done in the midnight sun

By the men who moil for gold;

The Arctic trails have their secret tales

That would make your blood run cold;

The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,

But the queerest they ever did see

Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge

I cremated Sam McGee.

[Shawna]

Ken, you posted that before... and I met someone recently who knew the entire thing by heart! And it's because of you that I knew what the heck he was talking about.

[Ken]

He's got another one, "The Shooting Of Dan McGrew". My Grampa used to tell us these poems, brings back great memories...

The Shooting of Dan McGrew

A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon;

The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune;

Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,

And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known as Lou.

When out of the night, which was fifty below, and into the din and glare,

There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks, dog-dirty, and loaded for bear.

He looked like a man with a foot in the grave and scarcely the strength of a louse,

Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar, and he called for drinks for the house.

There was none could place the stranger's face, though we searched ourselves for a clue;

But we drank his health, and the last to drink was Dangerous Dan McGrew.

There's men that somehow just grip your eyes, and hold them hard like a spell;

And such was he, and he looked to me like a man who had lived in hell;

With a face most hair, and the dreary stare of a dog whose day is done,

As he watered the green stuff in his glass, and the drops fell one by one.

Then I got to figgering who he was, and wondering what he'd do,

And I turned my head--and there watching him was the lady that's known as Lou.

His eyes went rubbering round the room, and he seemed in a kind of daze,

Till at last that old piano fell in the way of his wandering gaze.

The rag-time kid was having a drink; there was no one else on the stool,

So the stranger stumbles across the room, and flops down there like a fool.

In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway,

Then he clutched the keys with his talon hands--my God! but that man could play.

Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was awful clear,

And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could hear;

With only the howl of a timber wolf, and you camped there in the cold,

A helf-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold;

While high overhead, green, yellow, and red, the North Lights swept in bars?--

Then you've a hunch what the music meant...hunger and might and the stars.

And hunger not of the belly kind, that's banished with bacon and beans,

But the gnawing hunger of lonely men for a home and all that it means;

For a fireside far from the cares that are, four walls and a roof above;

But oh! so cramful of cosy joy, and crowded with a woman's love--

A woman dearer than all the world, and true as Heaven is true--

(God! how ghastly she looks through her rouge,--the lady that's known as Lou.)

Then on a sudden the music changed, so soft that you scarce could hear;

But you felt that your life had been looted clean of all that it once held dear;

That someone had stolen the woman you loved; that her love was a devil's lie;

That your guts were gone, and the best for you was to crawl away and die.

'Twas the crowning cry of a heart's despair, and it thrilled you through and through--

"I guess I'll make it a spread misere," said Dangerous Dan McGrew.

The music almost dies away...then it burst like a pent-up flood;

And it seemed to say, "Repay, repay," and my eyes were blind with blood.

The thought came back of an ancient wrong, and it stung like a frozen lash,

And the lust awoke to kill, to kill...then the music stopped with a crash,

And the stranger turned, and his eyes they burned in a most peculiar way;

In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;

Then his lips went in in a kind of grin, and he spoke, and his voice was calm,

And "Boys," says he, "you don't know me, and none of you care a damn;

But I want to state, and my words are straight, and I'll bet my poke they're true,

That one of you is a hound of hell...and that one is Dan McGrew."

Then I ducked my head and the lights went out, and two guns blazed in the dark;

And a woman screamed, and the lights went up, and two men lay stiff and stark.

Pitched on his head, and pumped full of lead, was Dangerous Dan McGrew,

While the man from the creeks lay clutched to the breast of the lady that's known as Lou.

These are the simple facts of the case, and I guess I ought to know.

They say that the stranger was crazed with "hooch," and I'm not denying it's so.

I'm not so wise as the lawyer guys, but strictly between us two--

The woman that kissed him and--pinched his poke--was the lady known as Lou.

[Mars88]

I don't remember taking poetry by Robert Service when I was in school, but my husband can.

It is minus 17C right now, but tomorrow (according to the weatherliars AKA Environment Canada), the high will be minus 3C. That's almost a heatwave...hope the ice cream in the Rubbermaid tub on the deck doesn't thaw out...

[RonJonSurfer]

It will be 60 degrees today in the Fun and Sun Capitol of the World...New Jersey!

[Jenny]

Yeah, but it's raining.....what's the point of a 60 degree day in February if it's gonna suck?

[RonJonSurfer]

I'll take warm February rain over a cold February blizzard..

[Jenny]

I guess you're right....I'm just grouchy and in need of sun.

[Rayzor]

60 degrees? I wish!

It's currently -11 C here (12 F) with the windchill bringing it down to -22 C (-7 F).

And today is a fairly nice day!

[Mars88]

We are into another cold snap. The temperature is -31C, with a windchill factor of -46C. It's so cold that, when I'm outside, my jacket material makes crunching sounds as I move.

[phil]

It's 65 degrees. I'm gonna shoot some hoops with the neighbor, work up a bit of a sweat.

[Ombre Vivante]

It was 80 F cold on Friday.

[MarcM]

Only 75 up here today....