I got my first taste of Iowan weather this week. This weekend and Monday I was working outside in a t-shirt under clear skies. Tuesday night it rained like two inches in several hours and drove hundreds of big earthworms onto my driveway.

Wednesday I was back to a t-shirt. Wednesday night it started raining as the temperature dropped well below zero. I did not realize how foul the weather had turned until I ordered a pizza for carry out and then went out to my car to pick it up. I almost slid from my front door to the car in one single glide, and then spent the next 30 minutes skating back and forth from my car to the bathroom, filling up a pitcher of hot water just so I could open the car door. My car was encased in a sheet of ice over a quarter inch thick in places. I still have not been able to open the passenger door.