Sunday, February 25, 2007, 14:09
Thunder Snow. . .and Then Some. . .
"What was that?" I said to Snowflake.
I was playing pink-mouse-on-a-string with Snowflake and Sophie in the living room Friday night when lightning flashed outside the living room window and thunder rumbled overhead.
Snowflake stopped playing with the pink mouse and looked up at the ceiling.
Thunder rumbled again.
Snowflake came and sat between my feet, still staring up at the ceiling.
"What's that, Snowflake?" I said.
"It's her first thunder!" Randy said.
It was, indeed, Snowflake's first thunder. She was born October 24, 2006, and we have not had thunder since then. Snowflake is a brave little kitty. She will climb anywhere. Play with anything. But she does not like loud noises. The vacuum cleaner sends her scurrying to hide under the blanket over her kitty carrier. She sleeps in her kitty carrier at night with a dish of kitten chow. (If I leave kitten chow out all of the time, the big kitties eat it.) If I drop the cover to a pan out in the kitchen, Snowflake flies down the hallway to the bedroom in less than two shakes of a lamb's tail. One day she climbed up on the back of a chair so she could get a closer look at what I was doing. The chair tipped over backwards, and by the time it had landed on the floor, Snowflake was nowhere to be seen. (It turns out that she had dove into the pile of boots under the coat closet.)
Our beloved little black kitty cat, Nightshade, who died October 28, 2005, used to growl when it thundered.
"You know what thunder means," I said to Randy Friday evening as Snowflake continued to sit between my feet.
"At least an inch an hour," he said.
The snow had started earlier about 6 p.m. while we were walking the dogs. At first, it was freezing rain for about 10 minutes. Then it changed to a hard pellet snow that continued until we back to the house. The actual snow started a little while later.
By Saturday morning, nearly 6 inches had fallen. For the first time this winter, Randy got the tractor out to plow the driveway. He had started it Thursday evening and let it run for a while to make sure it would start. He plowed our driveway, then he went a half mile to the neighbors where an elderly woman lives with her daughters to clear their driveway.
All the while, from Thursday on, a strong wind blew out of the east. The wind was still strong out of the east Saturday when we went into town to set up for the Colfax FFA Alumni Farm Toy Show. The snow continued off and on Saturday, although it only accumulated another inch of snow.
We also got a call Saturday evening that church was canceled. It was unlikely that the roads would be plowed, or the church parking lot plowed, by 8:30 a.m. Sunday morning.
Once again Saturday night, the snow started in. When I went out to give the horses more hay about midnight, it was *really* snowing -- and blowing. Snow fell and the wind immediately swirled it around in big clouds. Even Charlie didn't want to stay outside for very long.
When I got up Sunday morning, it was still snowing, and another 7 inches had fallen. The forecast is predicting 2 to 4 more inches to fall during the day today on Sunday. I am debating about getting into town for the Farm Toy Show. I am going. But I am not going to be in a big hurry. There probably won't be anyone around for the show for a while -- if at all. The roads have not been plowed yet, and it will be very slow driving.
Looks like I will be getting the snowshoes out this winter after all.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Wednesday, February 21, 2007, 21:25
Timmmmm. . .berrrrrr!
I knew the stack on top of the book case in my office was getting too high.
I knew it.
But did that stop me from trying to inch out the box on the *bottom* without removing the other items on top?
Nooooooooo. . .
So, there I was Wednesday morning, trying to get the box out on the bottom. Many other things were piled on top: notebooks for newspaper reporting, Priority mail envelopes and boxes, boxes of parchment paper that I use for printing flyers about my books.
Not to mention the stack of bookmarks waiting to be cut out for the Colfax FFA Alumni Farm Toy Show this weekend. I am going again this year as a vendor with my books.
It was the stack of bookmarks printed on card stock that gave way first.
You wouldn't think an inch-high stack of card stock would be that heavy or make that much noise, would you?
Right.
CRASH! went the stack of bookmarks as it fell off the bookcase, landed on the file drawers, hit the computer printer -- and then scattered every which way on the floor and under my desk.
"AHHHHHHHRRRRRGGGHHHHHH!" I screeched as the bookmarks took their tumble.
When the last of bookmarks settled, I heaved a deep sigh and went about picking them up.
When I opened my office door, I couldn't help but laugh out loud.
Lately I have taken to keeping my office door shut when I work early in the morning because Snowflake (bless her little kitten heart) loves to jump all over the computer and the mouse and the mouse cord when I am trying to work.
As I opened the door with the stack of bookmarks in my hand, intending to set them by the paper cutter that I have set up on the dresser in the bedroom (more of that stylish decor, you know, to go with the boots on the other dresser that are put there to keep them away from Snowflake), there were three kitty cats sitting right outside the door, eyes wide with alarm: Sophie, Snowflake and one of my silver tabbies, Guinevere. I don't know if it was the crash or my screech that brought them to the door, but they must have thought they'd better investigate.
"Hi guys," I said. "Made quite a crash, didn't it."
I put the bookmarks by the paper cutter and went back into my office.
The reason that I needed to get the box down, by the way, was because I was looking for the perforated paper that I use to print out "Preserve Your Family History: A Step-by-Step Guide for Interviewing Family Members and Writing Oral Histories." A middle school teacher in Indiana has ordered a copy to use in her classes.
After all of that, I found the perforated paper.
Thank goodness.
Actually, it was a good thing the bookmarks fell down. Picking them up reminded me that I have to cut them apart for the craft show this weekend. The bookmarks, which have recipes on them, are quite popular.
People are funny to watch. Some women will come up to my table, carefully go through the whole collection of bookmarks and select one. At other times, a small group of women will hurry over to my table, say that they heard I was giving away recipes, go through the whole stack, take one of each and think nothing of it, leaving me with half the bookmarks I had before the arrived.
Of course, that's if anyone is able to *get* to farm toy and craft show this weekend. The weather forecast says there is a snowstorm headed this way. A frontal boundary between warm and cold will travel right through Wisconsin, they say.
The south side of the boundary (southeastern Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana) is predicted to receive rain. The middle section, which is predicted to be eastern Wisconsin and back into Iowa and some of Illinois, will get freezing rain. The back side of the boundary, from the middle of Wisconsin back through to Minnesota, the Dakotas and beyond, is supposed to get snow. . .
More Destruction -- Selecting that particular title of "timmm-berrr" for my blog entry today may have been a mistake. I have spent all day listening to real timber falling. The town patrolman is back with the boom mower and his chainsaw. As if it wasn't bad enough that he hacked trees to pieces around the hill by our house, he is now making his way north down the dirt road.
I am afraid to see what kind of a mess he is leaving and which trees have been destroyed. There are lovely jack pine, oak, black cherry and maple trees growing along the road. He chops them all down, piles the trees in the ditch and leaves them in a big heap three or four feet tall. For what purpose, I have no idea. About four cars a day drive that stretch of road so it doesn't really make sense that he needs to make the road wider. And he certainly isn't leaving much room to push snow off the side of the road should the occasion arise that he has to plow snow.
Doesn't he have better things to do with his time?
LeAnn R. Ralph