Monday, February 25, 2008, 19:53
Warmer Weather
Last week the average daily temperature here at Rural Route 2 was 4 degrees. Usually an average daily temperature in the single digits occurs during the first and second week of January -- not toward the end of February.
Monday morning, I could hardly believe my eyes when the temperature was 24 degrees. In the morning. Not the afternoon high. The low temperature in the morning.
At 1:30 p.m. Monday, the thermometer I can see from my office window said it was 45 degrees outside. That's 40 degrees more than the average temperature last week. That's like the difference between 20 degrees Fahrenheit and 60 degrees.
I am hoping that the Arctic air is finished for the season. But I would not bet money on it.
At the Farm Toy Craft Sale Sunday in my hometown, a number of people mentioned how lovely it was that it was not below zero outside. Many of them who mentioned the weather also talked about what a terribly cold winter we've been having this year and how much more difficult life becomes when it is below zero.
As for the farm toy show, I don't know how the attendance was on the toy show side of it, but in the crafters section, about half of the people came through compared to the first year I attended the farm toy show with my books. Last year was not a good year for comparison because of the snowstorm. But this year, only about half the people came through the craft sale as the first year. It also seemed to me that there were fewer craft vendors. All together, I sold 7 books. Not a huge number. But better than selling no books at all.
The few times I went into the other gymnasium where the farm toy show was set up, it was wall to wall people, so many people that it was a little difficult to get through there. So maybe that side of the show did all right. For those people who stayed away this year, I would imagine that with gasoline over $3 a gallon, some people do not believe it is worth it to drive any great distance to attend a farm toy show.
Anyway, it is interesting that we have such warm weather here today. The southern part of the state is getting hit with another snowstorm. That area already has about 90 inches of snow, which compares to the 30 we've gotten here. I am predicting that we are in for another devastatingly dry summer this year.
I hope I am wrong.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Saturday, February 23, 2008, 20:58
Inquiring Minds Want to Know
Would someone please tell me what happened to this past week? Does anyone know where it went to? I seem to have lost the week.
For starters, I covered a three-day trial for the local weekly newspaper for a teacher I had "way back when" in high school accused of sexually assaulting a mentally impaired young man. It was a "bench trial" -- that is, the judge heard all of the testimony and then handed down a verdict. There was no jury selection. Finding a jury would have taken just that much longer. The defendant, who is now 71, waived his right to a jury trial. His attorney recommended it because of some legal intricacies concerning admissible evidence from another charge of second degree sexual assault of a mentally impaired victim. The attorney was convinced a jury would not be able to understand the law well enough to apply it in this case. The defendant was found guilty, so of course now the attorney thinks the judge did not know the law well enough either. I wouldn't be surprised if there was an appeal.
It was a difficult story to write. What to leave in -- what to take out. The publisher has already gotten calls about a previous story I wrote saying that the trial was coming up. Some folks are upset about having "that kind of thing" in the local newspaper. The publisher said he stands behind the story because it is the truth and it is what is included in the criminal complaint. Several people have, however, thanked me for "honest reporting." When people hide their heads in the sand about such things, it is my opinion that's how predators are able to operate.
Anyway. I'm glad it's over. Of course, there's still the preliminary hearing in the other case. And the sentencing hearing for this case.
More Tornado Stories
I interviewed another person this past week by telephone who survived the tornado in my hometown in 1958. He was 16 at the time and was in the barn with his 14-year-old brother, milking the cows. His folks were at their other farm, milking cows there. An intense lightning storm came before the tornado. Lightning was coming through the cows and shocking the boys as they were milking. Then it grew dark. And then the man said he looked out the barn door and saw the machine shed go flying past.
At that point, he figured they had better get out of the barn. They ran out to the concrete slab by the barn cleaner and threw themselves face down in the muck. The noise was incredible. Like a freight train, but worse, he said. After a few moments, the man said he got the strong feeling they should not be there. They got up and ran another 20 or 30 steps and threw themselves down in the barnyard muck again, and moments later, two silos came crashing down right where the boys had been lying seconds earlier.
When it was all over, they looked to the south where the barn had been where their folks were milking. . .and there was nothing. They looked behind them, and everything was gone there too. The tornado that came through my hometown was 3/4 of mile to a mile wide.
The boys got up and without saying a word began walking toward the other farm. They knew their folks were dead.
After a few minutes, they saw two people walking toward them.
It was their mom and dad.
The man's parents had looked north, saw that everything was gone, and they *knew* that their two boys were dead.
As it turned out, none of them were seriously injured.
Unfortunately, that wasn't the case for two men thrown out of a vehicle right by the farm. The man's dad told them to walk to town, about a 1/2 mile or less away, to see what they could do to help. They discovered two men wrapped up in barbed wire and obviously quite dead. A friend and classmate of the man's worked at the local funeral home, and between him, his friend and the 14-year-old brother, they cut the men out of the barbed wire.
"We could see white bone. We couldn't get them out. We had to get wire cutters to get them out. We had to cut their skin to get them out," he said. "My little brother probably shouldn't have been there. But he was."
Because all of the fences were down and farmers in the area had hogs, they knew they had to get the men out of the barbed wire because if there were hogs running loose, the first thing they would go for would be the dead bodies, he said.
Later on, the man found out that his best friend had been killed. The boy was in a silo at another farm and the silo fell in on him. All these years later, almost 50 years later, he still gets choked up when he talks about the loss of his friend.
The man, now a chemistry and physics teacher, said that he knows physics and that the silo should have been the safest place for his friend. But it wasn't.
The man also is still outraged by the looters who were in town johnny-on-the-spot. They were looting a house where someone lay dead in the basement. The local police chief, who lost everything himself, was there immediately to stop them. The National Guard shut down all roads into the town shortly after that. No one could get in. The man's sister was away at college in the next town over, and for three or four days, she did not know if her family was alive or dead.
And then, too, I received a e-mail from another lady who was a baby at the time, but who told the story of her aunt whose house was destroyed by the tornado. The aunt had baked a cake that afternoon. The house was gone. Everything was gone. Except the table where the cake stood. The cake was full of glass shards, but it was still on the table. And a dozen eggs next to the cake were completely intact without so much as a hairline crack. But everything else was gone.
Warm Up
The weather has warmed up a bit. It was only 4 degrees below zero this morning. Earlier in the week it was 16 or 17 below zero in the morning. With the Saturday morning low of 4 degrees below, that makes 39 times we have gotten below zero this winter. The weather forecast is now saying that the temperatures will be lows in the single digits this next week and highs in the 20s. That would be nice. Downright balmy, in fact, compared to what we've had.
Duke Update
I am continuing to give Duke subcutaneous fluid pretty much every day and shots of Procrit three times a week. He is eating a little more. And he is getting a little stronger. Instead of lying down to rest when he is halfway across the living room, he is just sitting down to rest. He is still getting the Petinnic, too, which makes him gag.
Craft Sale
I am signed up to be a vendor Sunday at the farm toy and craft show in my hometown. Last year we had a snowstorm on that day, and only half the vendors made it, and less than half the people who would have been expected to walk through made it. No snowstorm is predicted for tomorrow, and the temperature is supposed to reach 30 degrees (heat wave!).
LeAnn R. Ralph