It’s been a rough winter. The last month or so has been a series of storms, polar vortex, blizzards and such. Hell, MI froze over, though there is some question as to how unusual that was. Atlanta got something around an inch of snow and was a parking lot. I was talking to my boss this week about this. He mentioned that a couple of years ago he was going to a trade show down south somewhere and arrived just after a winter storm had dropped about an inch of snow. The city was completely shut down. He walked up to the auto rental counter but before he could say anything they told him that because of the snow they were not renting any cars to anyone. “Nobody here knows how to drive in this stuff.” My boss pulled out his driver’s license and said, “But I’m from Canada.” They didn’t even hesitate. They rented him a car on the spot. He didn’t have the heart to tell them that he lived on Vancouver Island where we almost never get snow.

Even if you don’t live somewhere thats been cold, the weather has still been strange. I was talking to my mom last week and she mentioned that they were way below normal for rainfall. She even used the D word, drought. Think about this for a second. She lives in Nevada, one of the absolutely driest parts of the world. I mean, Saudis have looked around Washoe County and thought, “Damn I could never live here”. Nevada is in fact the land of 10,000 dry lakes. Nevada, where the state rock is sand and the state tree is petrified.  And yet, they are worried about a drought. I would have thought that was only possible if there was such a thing as negative rainfall. Actually it isn’t just Nevada, the whole west coast is dry. California has issued a drought emergency, Oregon and Washington are way behind on rainfall, and I’ve mentioned before how our snowpack is just a fraction of what it should be. Things are strange all over. 

But it could be worse. The town of Clovis, New Mexico is buried, not with snow, not with locusts or frogs or any of the normal plagues. No, Clovis is covered with tumbleweeds. Tumbleweeds up to the roof gutters. (OK, I’m not sure why you would need gutters in New Mexico, but for the sake of argument let’s say they have them.) Tumbleweeds burying cars and trapping people in houses. It’s the Invasion of the Tumbleweeds. 
http://www.cbc.ca/newsblogs/yourcommunity/2014/01/tumbleweed-invasion-2014-tumbleweeds-bury-new-mexico-town.html
This could be a movie starring Vincent Price with Lon Chaney, as the King of the Tumbleweeds. Actually I seem to remember a Twilight Zone episode where aliens came to earth and adapted the form of the first living thing they encountered so as to be able to communicate with people. Unfortunately, this being Nevada, the only living thing around was tumbleweeds. The twist was that apparently, for some reason tumbleweeds harboured an intense hatred of humanity and this poisoned the attempt. 

Ah, the golden age of TV.

Anyway, as I started to say, are you sick of the weather yet? Want to move somewhere that doesn’t try to kill you? You could try Italy. It’s nice and I hear that there’s a picturesque villa that just came on the market. It’s a classic home that needs a bit of work, especially to the barn. But, it has acres of vineyards and some breathtaking ornamental stones in the yard. I believe the family is suddenly VERY motivated to sell. 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25975251

But closer to home, well, our home at least, you could move to Canada. Now I will say that Vancouver is not somewhere I’d recommend. Oh, it’s a nice city, I really like it. However a recent study found that Vancouver was the second least affordable housing market in the world. Second only to Hong Kong. How expensive is it? For a couple hundred thousand less than the median home price in Vancouver, you can buy a whole bloody castle in New Brunswick. Yes, an actual 19,000 square foot, 54 room castle, built out of stone blocks, with turrets and everything on a 30,000 square foot lot or an 1100 square foot bungalow in Vancouver. Of course in New Brunswick you’d be back to dealing with the snow again, which is what you’re trying to get away from.
http://blogs.theprovince.com/2014/01/27/welcome-to-the-new-brunswick-castle-that-costs-less-than-an-east-van-bungalow/

This is one of the reasons we live on Vancouver Island and not the mainland, the housing is cheaper.

But it is possible to find reasonably priced housing in BC. Here on Vancouver Island we found our place at a reasonable price. If you head up to the northern part of the province, you can find inexpensive houses, but then you have to deal with that pesky snow again. There are two places in Boston Bar, BC that are for sale. The upside is that they are going for one dollar each. The down side is that they are heritage houses and you have to repair them, preserve them, and not make any major modifications to them. So, because we look at houses as a canvas to be changed rather than just live in them, it’s probably not the place for Marsha and I. And of course once again there’s the pesky winter snow again. But the price is right. 
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/cheapest-b-c-home-1-buys-you-boston-bar-heritage-house-1.2514794

So all in all if you’re looking to get away from nasty winter weather, heavy snow, horrible cold, and of course tumbleweeds, you can’t beat Vancouver Island. Now if you’ll excuse me. I need to get back to planning the garden. I mean within the next few weeks we’ll be prepping the beds and looking to start planting. But you in Minnesota you know how that is, don’t you.