The frosty road leading to Patterdale Hall on one of the coldest mornings of the last several years. (News archive photo)
The Patterdale Hall Diaries | A high albedo
- Published: February 17, 2025
By Chris Wyatt
Albedo (n.): The fraction of light that a surface reflects.
Jan. 6, 2025
We got about four inches of snow and will probably get another two inches this morning. School is closed, as is Wright State, so it will be a quiet day drinking tea. Archie bounded out into the snow, but he only has little legs so he bounded back in promptly. I’ll try and coax him out again later.
Well, I got Archie out and we have six inches now. It’s still coming down, so we will likely end up with eight. It’s pretty windy too, so it was difficult to see clearly. Morris has shoveled a bit and cleared the Saab off and I’ll clear the Subaru when the snow calms down. More tea is required.
Jan. 7, 2025
First day back at work today. There are some critical things I need to get done as well as taxes and FAFSA. I basically need to start by making the traditional list. I had frightening gut pain last night, but it seems to have passed and so wasn’t diverticulitis, thank god.
Jan. 9, 2025
I still have some pain, but it’s only just above baseline so I’m hanging tight. We got a bunch of snow and Mo’s car got stuck, but everything has been shoveled and the Miata is back in the garage. All is well.
Small Archie is dug in next to me on the sofa. It’s 16 degrees Fahrenheit outside, but I got him walked three times today, which is the minimum for a very hyper little dog. It is properly winter now, and it is absolutely time to read a novel about Russian witchcraft. Time out.
Jan. 15, 2025
Well, the gods of fortune were shining on me today.
It was minus 2 F when I got up, so I drove out to the Hall to turn up the radiators and potentially light a fire. It was a beautiful morning: clear blue skies, no wind, just bitterly cold. I emptied a mousetrap, adjusted the radiators, broke the rime of ice in the toilet and headed back to Yellow Springs. My car battery then died in Tom’s Market parking lot.
I am currently waiting for Morris’ jump-start battery to charge as he allowed it to go flat, and then lost the charging cable. These battery starter things are amazing but absolutely useless if they have no charge. Thanks, Morris.
Still at least I’m not stuck out at the Hall. I can sit in the warm while stuff charges. Once the car is back at the house, I’ll pop its battery out and charge it through the day and overnight. That should help. I had a diagnostic run on the battery the other day. Everything is fine — the alternator is working, the battery is good, but it is struggling to provide enough power and it is brutally cold. I should probably have the car serviced, as long as that service cleans all the electrical connections between the battery and the starter motor. Maybe I should just learn how to do all that myself, it used to be the American way.
Jan. 19, 2025
As is tradition in January, we are looking down the barrel of a few bitterly cold days. There will be a low of minus 6 F (minus 21 C) on Wednesday and a low of zero F tonight.
Tomorrow is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, so there is no school, which means I can safely get a fire going and brave the elements without worrying that I’ll be a reeking, disheveled, sleep-deprived mess for class.
The other day Karen and Archie went out to the Hall for the first time in a couple of weeks. Little Arch was energized by the pristine virgin snow and went bouncing everywhere with great gusto. The cold had preserved the powdery nature of the snow, and it didn’t clump on his fur at all. He investigated all the deer and rabbit tracks, of which there were many, and rooted about with his head under about six inches of snow. Arch only has four-inch-long front legs, so this is always high comedy. It was a beautiful day, and the albedo was high. Bright light is always welcome at this time of year, as these can be grey days.
I always worry that there will be little to write about at this time of year. Folk batten down the hatches and hibernate. I’ve been reading and snuggling with the dog, which seems like the most appropriate activity for January. I read 27 books in 2024, but I don’t think I’ll read that many this year. There were some points in the year where I forced myself to finish books that I wasn’t enjoying and I’m not doing that again. I started the year with a great folk-horror book called “Withered Hill.” Now I need to get down to Dark Star, because the science fiction novel that I am currently reading is complete garbage.
It is sheet ice outside; yesterday’s thaw has now been arrested. Walking a dog in these conditions is deadly. Whilst Archie may only weigh 15 pounds, he can go from 0–60 in seconds and exert the force of a complete team of sled dogs. Very dangerous indeed.
Fortunately, we didn’t see any humans, dogs, geese, crows, bicycles, deer, shadows, cats, squirrels, snowplows, garbage trucks, snow men, Christmas nativities, sparrows or motorbikes on the walk, so Archie was calm and well behaved. Archie’s hatred of everything is the stuff of legend — this is a little dog that launched himself into the air to kill a goose that was flying 200 feet above us. He has the heart of a lion.
*Originally from Manchester, England, Chris Wyatt is an associate professor of neuroscience, cell biology and physiology at Wright State University. He has lived in Yellow Springs for 17 years, is married and has two children and an insane Patterdale terrier.
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