You know when some tourists
come to the Kimberley they have already been worded up on the "horror
stories" - crocs, sharks, stingers, spiders, cyclones etc.
Well, I got my dose on Saturday night when we went to Church. We
have a chapel on campus and we had about 35 in the congregation.
It's a beautiful church inside and they asked me to do the reading.
I thought - "well, yeah, OK- if you think you can understand
me". Afterwards, I was speaking with the priest who has to
attend to about 6 parishes in this area. He worked in the Nuclear
Industry for 30 years, raised a family and now has been ordained 2 years
ago. At the moment the weather here is beautiful - warm days and
coolish nights but he told me what it can be like here in winter. 30
degrees below zero,
winds 60 m.p.h. and a chill factor of minus 70
degrees. He informed me that one of the religious sisters is buried
in the nearby cemetery because she tried to walk from one building here to
another - lost her way and froze to death. "Jeez - what am I
doing here????????" "Oh, yeah" - he went on -
"the snow was so high one year it covered over one of the buses"
"Yikes!!!! - what have we let ourselves in for????" When I
spoke to Kate's sister last night I was seeking some reassurance and she
added as few stories of her own. Two ladies were travelling down the
Interstate and were caught in a snow storm. It covered over their
car. Fortunately, they had a broom handle in their car (one wonders
why). Well they poked it up through the snow and the next morning
the authorities were alerted to the strange site of the top of a broom
handle above the snow. They were dug out and found to be OK.
There are lots of safety things to do apparently - burn a candle in your
car, have a sleeping bag, mobile phone, water can be obtained from the
snow etc. Well, that gave me something to think about.
‘…..the big chill’
The snow is here. Get used to it – 5 months ahead in the freezer. Yesterday, we were happily walking in the paddocks that surround our farm and this morning we awoke to the colour white – everywhere. All the teachers are connected on a daisy chain of contacts and soon we received the news – ‘no school today’. Ah too bad! We have to sit at home and watch our 150 channels with our satellite dish TV, make coffee and ‘chill out’. But, it’s not all good news - soon, I realize that the car won’t start. After the usual checks there’s only one solution – ring our nearest town – Highmore, 20 miles away, and arrange for a tow truck. One of the other teacher’s drops in and reminds me of the “6 P’s” for South Dakota as we prepare for winter. “Don’t be offended: but, Prior Planning Prevents P--- Poor Problems”. OK – fair enough! He laughs and as he leaves, suggests we make a snowman to pass the time during the day. The snow gets thicker – 6 inches. The snow ploughs are in operation up and down the highways. Late afternoon is very dangerous on the roads. By that stage the snow has melted somewhat and around sunset the water turns to ice making driving extremely hazardous. On a sombre note – two women died in an accident about 50 miles from here today. The next morning we have a two-hour late start to school because of the icy conditions on the roads. One of the local buses doesn’t quite make it to school and skids off the road into a ditch. Fortunately, a tractor passes by and pulls it out. This morning it was minus 11 degrees Celsius outside – inside it was a cosy 25 degrees Celsius: thank God for central heating. Welcome to South Dakota – this is the start of the ‘big chill’.
150 channels on our
T.V.
People often warn you of the negative aspects of winter in South Dakota – horror stories of blizzards, unsafe roads and unbelievably low temperatures. While true, this part of the world offers unreal beauty as well.
Yesterday was our wedding anniversary – Jan 11th
1997: that’s 7 wonderful years together.
We went to the nearby
church in Fort Thompson; which was our first time there. After Mass, Father
asked if anyone was celebrating a birthday or an anniversary. Well, we happily,
though sheepishly, raised our hands and were acknowledged with a round of
applause. We stayed afterwards for coffee and doughnuts and had some very
enjoyable conversations with the local Native American people. We then went on
a stunningly beautiful drive. The huge Missouri river, which is at least 1mile
across, is now iced. People can be seen here and there sitting out on a chair
and trying their luck with ice fishing.
The surrounding hills
were dotted with intermittent snow making a spectacular backdrop. We meandered
up the hills in our car and then down to the nearby town of Chamberlain, which
is nestled at the bottom of the valley. The roads and highways are usually
lacking traffic and this makes for a great trip. We called into ‘Al’s Oasis’
for the buffet lunch of chicken, spare ribs, potato, corn, gravy, salad and
sweets for $9 each – can’t beat that!
In winter people talk of ice, snow, sleet, frost, hoar frost, hail, ice crystals, freezing rain, and flurries – but what’s the difference? One of the most beautiful sights here is the occurrence of frost. Whilst only happening rarely, the accompanying pictures show why this phenomenon can take your breath away. Frost, for the scientific mind, results from high humidity. A layer of cold air on top of a warm layer of air, condenses, since it is heavier and drier and forms frost on everything including trees, gates, fences etc.
We woke up today, (Jan 5th), to our first day of school for the remaining semester. “Gees – it’s cold!” All the windows were iced up and the outside temp was reading 8 degrees F below zero (or 24 degrees below zero Celsius). If it’s windy today the chill factor could get the temperature down to 30 degrees F below zero. I don’t know how this happens, but the windows all had thousands of intricate patterns of small flowers like the ones you see sometimes on expensive frosted glassware. After breakfast, I headed out to start the car. Fortunately, we have a garage and so it started OK. You need to run your car for 15 minutes before you can journey out. This will insure that the heat is coming through and the windows will not fog up. By the time I came back inside the house my ears, toes, nose and fingers were crying out for warmth. It’s quite a change when you come inside - 75 degrees F or 25 degrees Celsius – which is really cozy.
Arriving at school, I endeavoured to find a key and wrestled with the metal door to seek solace inside for both of us. Don’t make the mistake like I did of grabbing the handle with your bare hands. The chill goes straight to the bone and it takes quite a few minutes before you get feeling back into your hand. To our distress, there was no solace inside. The heaters weren’t working in the High School. We tried to teach our first period. I found that my writing froze on the board while using my white board marker. At the end of the period, it was quite a job to rub the lesson back off. Kate, couldn’t feel her feet in the library and returned back home to pick up a bar heater. But, relief was at hand for all of us. “Newsflash - School has been called off for the High School today.” (The Middle School and Elementary had to carry on regardless because their heaters were OK.) We couldn’t wait to come home again and crank our heat up to 80 degrees F.
Winter health and safety
 | You need a couple of humidifiers in your house. They are filled up with water each night and you put a cap full of anti bacteria treatment and humidifier treatment in it to keep the air safe. Humidifiers of course put water back into the air and stop your body drying out with the heat from the furnace. |
| In the basement you need to run a dehumidifier 24/7 to take water out of the air. This will prevent mould and smells. If mould takes over it will get into the foundations and will be impossible to get out. People have been known to have to knock down their home to get rid of it. |
| Car safety requires a mobile phone to be taken for communication in case
of blizzards etc, sleeping bags for warmth and oddly enough – candles.
 When these are lit, it is enough to raise
the temp a few degrees to stop you freezing to death. |
| If you don’t rub Vaseline Intensive Care Lotion all over our body each day you will find the urge to itch irresistible. The heat from the furnace dries your skin out and the humidifier is not enough to overcome the problem |
| If you want to be really careful – take a broom handle with you so if your car is covered over in a blizzard you can poke up your broom to let rescuers know where you are. As I mentioned in an earlier email this actually happened and saved two peoples lives. |
| If your car goes into a skid on ice the best thing to do is head for the ditch. Since most of the roads are flat with little fall offs, this is a better option than trying to right the car and hitting oncoming traffic or flipping over. You can always be pulled back out later and the snow off the highway will impede your speed. |
Today a few of the teachers said that their pipes had frozen. This is bad news because it means no water, no showers etc. One of the teachers has moved out for the time being and is staying at a hotel in the nearest town about 12 miles away. Thank God, we moved out from the trailer we first had because we would facing the same predicament now.
When you have light snow on the road and the wind is blowing across it you see the weird sensation of a seemingly smoking road or the effect you get when fog is pumped across a stage to add a mysterious atmosphere. At times it really looks like the highway is on fire.
This is only the beginning of winter. Further north in a place called Minot, North Dakota, which is often the coldest place in the United States, one of the priests was telling us that the temperatures one particular year plummeted to 92 degrees F below zero, when the wind chill factor was taken into consideration. I can’t really relate to that – what does this mean for human beings out in it? Can you even breathe without it hurting you? They say an interesting experiment is to microwave water to boiling point, go outside and throw it up into the air. I must try that!
Our goal is stay warm and safe over the next 3 months. The blizzards are next.
We had 5 inches of snow in early November and closed the school for a day. Since then the snow eventually melted and its been relatively mild with sunny days. Now we are in for a change again - big time. Gentle snow has been falling since lunch time - isn't it cute! Fluffy snow flakes - all the ground is white again. Ask me in a few days time when we are supposed to get another 5 inches and we're up to our arm pits in snow and the car doesn't start - if its "cute" then. When we're trying not to break our necks walking around on ice and the snow turns to sludge. And worst of all - we may not make it down to Kate's farm to taste her mums turkey. At least we had a staff student turkey dinner yesterday for the whole school. I've got some in a doggy bag for tonight as well. Just got a news flash from the Principal. School is called off. Get out of here ............OK ...............goodbye ...............happy thanksgiving ......................
Dakota winter’s really have a magic feel. Today when I closed the automatic garage door I thought I noticed sparks. When I squinted in the bright sunlight they were actually miniscule ice particles shimmering in the air. I hadn’t seen this before, and the spectacle followed us all the way to our nearest town, Highmore, about 20 miles away. According to a local rancher, the phenomenon only occurs when there is absolutely no wind, no clouds and brilliant sunshine. The sides of the road glittered with a gazillion diamonds that gave you the false impression that we could be surrounded by a fortune. The effect was everywhere. Even as we drove, diamonds flickered in the windscreen and above the road. It seemed like I had something a little stronger than a cup of tea for breakfast because I then saw a mirage in the distance to our left which looked like the turquoise waters of the ocean in Broome. As soon as I mentioned it to Kate we both felt a sense of longing to be back ‘home’ and expected to even see a ship out there on the horizon. As we drew closer to the town the mirage was enhanced by a black haze from a fire to our right that had spread sideways across the sky in front of us giving the impression of cliffs across a bay – very similar to the landscape at Prices Point up the coast from Broome.
We did our shopping in the local grocery store and as we headed home our breath was taken away by a cloud of sparkling ice particles. Kate said this is known as a snow shower and usually results from the wind blowing these tiny dust like fragments from the tree branches lining the road.
March is here and that means spring. Nature is slowly coming to life with buds visible on the trees and the snow geese are crossing our house in squadrons of ‘V’ shaped formations for their northern return. The animals are waking up from hibernation and the ‘big chill’ is coming to an end. I have braced myself for the worse over the last couple of months but this winter has been relatively mild with little snow and no blizzards. Nevertheless, we have a thermometer attached to our outside window so we can read the temperature clearly inside and a few weeks ago the red liquid was so compressed it was hardly making it out of the bulb at the bottom. Sure enough the next day it burst and now we only have the calibrations left. Today is very windy, icy and more snow is promised so we received the welcome news this morning – ‘School has been called off today’.
