Winter and All It's Fury

Pine Mountain

It is a week into the new year and winter has decided to show it's wild side. A winter storm is visiting Pine Mountain. It has been here a day and already there is 3 feet or almost a meter of new snow. The wind is gusting to 60 mph (97 kph) and has blown the snow into 6 ft (1.8) meter drifts. At times you can not even see 3 feet (1 meter) in front of you. This is what we call a whiteout. I stay in the house as much as possible. A person would not last long in this storm no matter how well they were dressed for it. I only go out to check on the animals in the barn and to feed them. I am glad the barn is close to the house. Even so I look like a snowman when I enter the house from outdoors. The house is warm and there is a crackling fire burning in the fireplace. The wind howls around the outside corners of the house but does not come in our well insulated dwelling. I take off my coat, hat, gloves, and boots in the kitchen. Now I am ready to try a new sample coffee from http://www.coffeefool.com/. Tonight I am trying Puerto Rican Yauco.

Puerto Rico

The rich cocoa like flavor soon has me dreaming of the tropical island of Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico is a rectangular shaped island that has been a United States territory since 1898. It has 580 kilometers/360 miles of white sand coastline. Puerto Rico is surrounded by deep ocean trenches. To the west is the Mona Passage. It is 75 miles/121 kilometers wide and 3300 feet/1000 meters deep. On the north is the Puerto Rican trench 28,000 feet/ 8500 meters deep. To the south is the Venezuelan basin 16,400 feet/5000 meters deep. The island is 60 % mountains with the major mountain chain running east and west along the length of the rectangular shaped island. The island has beaches, rain forest, rivers, and caves. There are some 240 species of trees 50 species of fern and 20 varieties of orchids that grow there. The northern part of the island is made of what is called karst. It is volcanic in nature and has been weathered by sun, wind, and rain forming limestone cliffs, haystack hills, and subterranean caves. There are no natural lakes but there are 15 artificial lakes created by damming up rivers. Four million people live there and they are a mixture of Spanish, French, Irish, Scottish, German, African, and Indian. My coffee is all gone now and I return from my musings about the island of Puerto Rico.If you are interested in finding out more about Puerto Rico, go to http://welcome.topuertorico.org/.

Pine Mountain Evening

The fire in the fireplace has burned down and the house is getting cold so I put some more wood on the fire and curl up in my recliner by the fire with the latest issue of Discover magazine. The winter storm will eventually leave and then I will begin to dig out from all the snow. Everyone stay safe and warm from this storm and I will see you next week with another story from Pine Mountain.