still winter

For those of us trying to escape the long winter....we didn't.

If I see another of these storms coming....I may get in the car and drive south.

Actually I had about 10 minutes warning. Then we had to jump in the truck and drive to the feed store. Why do all winter storms come just after shepherds have run out of feed and hay?

So, we drove the five miles to the feed store in driving sleet, actually it took 15 minutes to get the ice off the windows....but on our county road there were no other cars anyway. We waited our turn with the other 15 people who were also out of feed, and loaded up....driving about 30 miles an hour on the way home. What fun unloading all the hay and feed in the sleet and rain....whee!!!! That stuff hurts.

Whatever makes me think this is a good thing to do? This is dumb, dumb, dumb. The really fortunate thing is that the electricity has come back on. Thank you for TV, Computers, Microwaves, and Water. hurray! Water!!!!

My brain must not work at all any more. We finished feeding the sheep, and came back in....but didn't run extra water. Dumb, dumb, dumb! We had rain, hail, sleet, snow the size of snowballs and then rain. Rain is bad in the freezing temperatures.

How bad is it?

Well, in order to walk down hill to the barn this morning....we had to pound holes for our feet to fit into in the layer under the ice. One-half inch of ice does not give under your feet. So we took turns prying ice off the three inches of sleet on the ground. We spent hours, it seemed, walking our inside dog over the ice.

How bad is it?

The inside dog won't go outside. I found she had done her thing outside the kitty-litter box. Unfortunately, I didn't see her pile when I cleaned the kitty-litter box. Oh well, my shoe will clean up eventually.

When you are sitting around in the dark trying to keep the wood fire burning....you come up with all kinds of thoughts. We put the ice chunks from our holes in the ice....into a pan on top of the wood stove. Then we had water for the inside dog and the cats.

We wondered why we don't keep chicken grit anymore for throwing on the ice?

The bird food, I threw out the door, slid across the ice like a puck in a hockey game.

We wondered if anyone will come down our road to scrape the ice off?

Believe me, it won't be melting any time soon.

We wondered why we didn't have a cupboard full of food for such emergencies?

I took the opportunity, of the electricity working, to bake bread and cook some oatmeal.

Dumb try to make oatmeal on top of the wood stove just evaporated the milk.

As I was picking myself up from the ground, I wondered how long I could take chances with the physical work of raising sheep before I get hurt.

This ice storm may convince me, I need to slow down.

I'm trying to stay calm. Electricity helps....it helps a lot.

How many days will we be iced-in?

I don't know.

How bad is it out there?