There's Snow Stopping me...or is There?

The calendar still says it's Autumn, but Mother Nature unexpectedly dumped a few inches of snow on us Monday night, about two-thirds of the way through the season. As someone who works outside on an almost daily basis, I'm pretty well accustomed to the changing of the seasons and can work through just about any sudden variation in the weather. However, attempting to apply fertilizer to a lawn covered in snow would be futile, so my boss has called us off the last couple days.

Not one to be kept inside (I did shore up a few indoor projects in the homestead), I kept up with my "usual" errands in spite of temps hovering in the mid-20° range:

If you're eagle-eyed, you can see the Big Splash Water Park in the background:

It goes without saying, it's not a place you'd want to be on days like yesterday and today. At any rate, you can see that paved surfaces weren't too adversely affected by the snow, and school wasn't even delayed by this quick blast of Winter weather. I had very little difficulty getting to and from the grocery store yesterday:

That said, I'm well aware that trying to run errands on a bike in this weather is anything but usual. I was the only cyclist I saw on the road yesterday and today. I totally understand why most people don't want to do this sort of thing. I'll also say that once you try it, it gets easier every time after that.

Now that I've done this a time or two hundred, the only real difficulty is dressing for the occasion, which is simply a matter of taking the time to do so. I'm a bit old-school in my approach to gearing up for this sort of weather (which honestly isn't that extreme, in my opinion, but I've been doing this for a few years). I usually start with a standard balaclava for my head and neck:

I like my balaclava because it's not as cumbersome as a beanie and scarf combination, it's easy to pull the lower half up over your mouth/nose area for colder conditions, and it also fits nicely under a helmet:

I also go with traditional thermal long johns under my pants and socks, which have always worked better for me than any of the spage-age Under Armour style fabrics. This week's weather wasn't quite cold enough for me to switch to the ultra thick wool socks just yet. My regular crew socks did just fine:

I usually wear a thermal long-sleeved top in addition (you can sort of see it in a couple of the pics up there), and if all else fails, supplementing with the old-fashioned beer jacket never hurts:

The last remark was half sarcasm. Excessive liquid consumption in cold weather does not make you warmer (including hot cocoa, tea, or coffee). I just had to work in a plug for Grove City Brewing, one of my favourite local watering holes, which I decided to visit during today's errands. Not surprisingly (again), I was the only one who made use of the bike rack today:

Lest you think I only ventured outside to go day-drinking, I did also stop at the mailbox (because I'm an old man who still mails checks to pay bills):

And I went back to the grocery store to get some additional items for dinner tonite. One more time, I was the only one at the bike rack:

 

Obviously, since I'm typing this post, I've survived my short ventures into the outdoors over the last couple days. I'm happy I was able to get at least some physical activity accomplished in spite of lackluster conditions, but I'm also hopeful this will move out before the weekend. There's still a month left in Autumn, after all...