{"id":6942,"date":"2014-02-03T09:12:55","date_gmt":"2014-02-03T14:12:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/allandouglas.dougbittinger.com\/blog\/?p=6942"},"modified":"2025-04-21T01:56:40","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T05:56:40","slug":"mountain-living-part-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/mountain-living-part-3\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ups and Downs of Mountain Living, Part 3"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_17747\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-17747\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/PineyMountainFoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-content\/uploads\/Road_Piney-Mountain-140122.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-17747\" src=\"http:\/\/PineyMountainFoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-content\/uploads\/Road_Piney-Mountain-140122-300x240.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"240\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-17747\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Piney Mountain Road &#8211; Icy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>This is part three of my on-going yammer about life in the mountains. \u00a0In Part 1 we looked at\u00a0<a style=\"color: #004276;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.grit.com\/farm-and-garden\/landscaping\/slope-side-living\">getting established<\/a>, in Part 2 we looked at the\u00a0<a style=\"color: #004276;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.grit.com\/farm-and-garden\/landscaping\/the-ups-and-downs-of-slope-side-living-part-2\">physical necessities<\/a>\u00a0of life here. \u00a0This time we\u2019ll look as the more esoteric aspects.<\/p>\n<p>In east Tennessee winters are normally pretty mild. \u00a0<em>This<\/em>\u00a0winter has been an exception: in early January we hit an overnight low of minus 1\u00b0 F, the lowest temperature in 20 years. \u00a0My relatives in Nebraska and Colorado laugh at me, saying that\u2019s a balmy spring day to them. \u00a0We have been spoiled by the normally temperate weather we enjoy so much here. \u00a0Aside from this year\u2019s cold, we do have some special challenges.<\/p>\n<p>One is that temperatures vary with elevation. \u00a0Newport sprawls out along the Pigeon River on the floor of the valley and is around 1,050 feet elevation. \u00a0At 6,593 feet, Mount LeConte is the highest point in our immediate area (we can see it from our front porch) and the difference in temperature between there and Newport can be dramatic. \u00a0There are dozens and dozens of other mountain peaks that range between 1,500 and 4,000 feet.<\/p>\n<p>After a snow, we often have continued school closings on days when the roads in Newport are clear and the weather seems fine. \u00a0This is to accommodate the people who live in those higher elevations where it has not warmed up enough for things to start melting off.\u00a0 Road ice is the major issue.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Read more on my Grit Magazine column\" href=\"https:\/\/www.grit.com\/farm-and-garden\/landscaping\/the-ups-and-downs-of-slope-side-living-part-3#ixzz31n1YCfMl\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Read more:\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is part three of my on-going yammer about life in the mountains. &nbsp;In Part 1 we looked at&nbsp;getting established, in Part 2 we looked at the&nbsp;physical necessities&nbsp;of life here. &nbsp;This time we&rsquo;ll look as the more esoteric aspects. In east Tennessee winters are normally pretty mild. &nbsp;This&nbsp;winter has been an exception: in early January &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/mountain-living-part-3\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The Ups and Downs of Mountain Living, Part 3&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[22,88],"class_list":["post-6942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","tag-mountain-life","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6942"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19433,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6942\/revisions\/19433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}