There Was A Reason

What is it about 3:30 a.m.?  It was just about that time this morning when I came flying out of bed when I heard the crack and rip of a falling tree.  That's a sound that, once heard, one never forgets.  I didn't feel or hear the thud, so I knew it wasn't close to the house so figured I'd see what happened in the light of day.  Uh huh.

Turned on the computer, made my coffee, and came back to write the blog.  Uh huh.  Computer, but no internet.  Well, it wasn't until I turned on the porch light on the deck that I saw we'd had snow during the night.  Quite a bit of snow.  Enough snow to fill the satellite dishes and stop me dead in my tracks.  No blog, no FB, no email, and no TV.  Nada.  Killing time with solitaire, I waited for daybreak.  Uh huh.  Then the power went out.  Aarrgh!

Clay had given me a small emergency flashlight for Christmas and, best of all, I knew right where it was.  Do you know how hard it is to dial a landline phone with one hand while holding a flashlight in the other and try to "Push 1 for a gas outage, push 2 for an electrical outage, push 4 if you have a dog on the premises..."?  A few hours later I called for a status update.  "Be prepared for a lengthy wait for service."  Uh huh.

My milk customer called to say he was on his way over.  "Do you have four-wheel drive?  There are about six inches of snow on my driveway."  "Oh, yes.  No problem."  I didn't understand when he arrived huffing and puffing at my door until he told me that my driveway was completely blocked by a fallen tree (that I could not see from the house) and he'd had to walk through that snow up the steep hill.  I immediately put in a call to Helper Dude who fortunately had time today and a chainsaw.

I'd been waiting for the snow and ice to melt off my truck so I could get down to Mt. Aukum.  The goat girls were completely out of food and I was getting desperate.  Uh huh.  I wasn't going anywhere.  It helped to keep my mind off my dilemma with a new, very absorbing book  HD showed up and worked for an hour and a half and still couldn't clear the drive.  It was a very, very large tree that had split into three sections, one falling over the driveway.  I frothed and fumed as I explained my situation and HD took pity and offered to go home, get his car (he'd just gotten his license!) and offered to drive me down to get food for the girls.  Uh huh.  I've watched HD race up and down our roads on his dirt bike and quad, so it's perhaps a sign of my distress that I said, "Yes, please."  I will happily say that HD drove carefully (i.e., slowly) and then helped me get the heavy bag of feed down to the barn.  Did I say it had started snowing again?  Down in the barn, one panel had suffered under the weight of the snow and Cindy's stall was a puddle of mud.  If it's not one thing, it's another.

The electricity is back on for the time being.  The goats have food.  HD is coming back tomorrow.  But there was a reason I'm so late with this entry.  Trust me on this.