Pros and Cons of a Polar Vortex and my "To Do" list

The Polar Vortex is heading this way again facilitating a chore that I have been postponing for chilly weather, insulating the crawlspace under the house.  It could be done in warmer weather, but I choose not to for serious reasons. 

First, I put on one of those Tyvek suits to keep those itchy bits of fiber glass out of my clothes and it is rather warm in there. 

Second, the chilly temperatures change the critters out and about, namely snakes.  I've seen a ginormous king snake, a couple of rat snakes and the creme de la creme of giving me the willies, the copperhead.  The king snake, I know, is harmless, but he/she is so big that it really doesn't matter that I know it is harmless.  The rat snakes and I seem to have worked out a bit of an agreement that they stay out of my way and I'll stay out of theirs, but they keep shedding their skins just to the west of the foundation of the house, so I know that they are still there.  Then there was that little bitty copperhead, the problem with little bitty snakes is that odds are their siblings are also nearby.  The venomous bit isn't exactly a selling point either.  The polar winds will blow and those legless reptiles will wiggle their way into their little holes in the ground and stay there until spring.  Works for me.

Before the polar vortex gets here, I had a few things to get done. This morning, I patched the fault line that had formed in our driveway.  It had filled with weeds and bits of soil and to my surprise, many, many earthworms.  I cleaned it out and patched it.  I loved the instructions on the package that told me that if I didn't feel like renting a tamper, I could always drive the car back and forth over it.  So, with my little Scion, I tamped it.  Doing the pot hole that had formed on the shared part of the driveway was more fun to tamp, it is on a pretty steep incline and I have a five speed car.  Going back and forth over it, having to gun it a bit to pull back up the hill may have entertained the neighbors a little.

Later today my daughter and I will dig up the dahlia corms.  A month ago I should have dug up the irises that need to be divided, but I didn't, maybe that will happen also.  The daffodils need relocating and...it will be dark before it all happens.  Tomorrow is still supposed to be nice, the list will carry over.