Monday, January 22, 2007, 05:43
Degrees of Difference
It was 12 degrees Sunday morning. That's warm compared to other mornings this past week, especially the morning it was 14 below, but it's been below zero other mornings, too. So 12 degrees ought to have felt warm by comparison.
Except that it didn't feel very warm as Randy and I took Charlie for a walk down the hayfield. The air felt bitterly cold, a penetrating cold that sliced right through the fabric of my jeans and the fleece shirt and turtleneck I had on underneath my coat. A light east wind didn't help matters any. When we got back to the house, my legs felt icy cold.
By the time we were ready to leave for church an hour later, snow had begun to fall. I had heard two forecasts. One said 1 to 3 inches. The other 5 to 7 inches.
After we came home from church, the air temperature had risen to 17 degrees. Only 5 degrees more than first thing in the morning, but what a difference. The air actually felt balmy. A person could stand to be outside for a while and not end up with hands so cold you could hardly move your fingers, even with gloves. And it was still snowing.
The snow continued to fall for the rest of the morning and on into the afternoon. By 4 p.m., the sun was out a little bit and the snow had stopped. Sunday evening, the snow started again, but only big fluffy flakes. All together from the snow that had fallen in the morning, we got about 2 inches. And the air still felt balmy, even though the temperature never rose above 20 degrees.
When we are under high pressure with dry air, and probably a little bit of wind, the air is so piercingly cold it seems as if it could peel the skin right off my face. I can feel the prickle of ice crystals forming on the top layer of my skin. My sinuses ache from the frigid wind, and I think that maybe I will never be warm again.
But let the air temperature rise a little bit, and let a little moisture come into the air, and the transformation is startling. Suddenly I feel a glimmer of hope that maybe spring is not *quite* as far away as I thought it was.
The heavy, wet snow of March that tends to break off tree branches may be waiting for us in the future. But for right now, there's snow on the trees. A pretty snow that is light and fluffy and clinging to all of the branches, looking as pretty as a picture postcard.
Charlie -- Our Springer Spaniel, Charlie, has been sick all week. Last Saturday, before the arctic air set in, we took the two dogs for a walk. There was no snow on the ground then, and Pixie and Charlie enjoyed their romp through the neighbor's fields with us. At one point, Charlie found "something" and started to eat it. Before Randy could get over to him, the dog had swallowed it.
If Pixie picks up something and starts chewing on it and we yell "drop it," she drops it. Even if she's many feet away. Not Charlie. When he gets a hold of something, "drop it" means nothing to him. He's going to eat it one way or the other.
The problem started during the night on Sunday for Charlie with severe diarrhea. We got some Pepto Bismal into him on Monday and again on Tuesday, but by Wednesday morning, the problem was much worse. I lost track of the number of blankets I washed this past week. If Charlie suddenly had to go outside in the middle of the night but neither of us was awake to hear him whimpering, he wouldn't be able to hold it, and I would have another blanket to wash.
By Wednesday morning, I knew that Charlie was not getting any better. So I called the vet clinic, explained that Charlie had eaten "something" on Saturday and that he had been sick since Sunday.
The vet said she thought he might have an intestinal infection and would need an antibiotic. I went into town Wednesday to get the medicine, and by Thursday morning, Charlie seemed to be doing somewhat better. He has enough antibiotic (metronidazole) for 10 days. So, we shall see. I hope the antibiotic clears up the problem completely by the time he's done with the meds.
I figure with all of the warm weather we've had before this, who knows what kind of mold or bacteria may have been growing on whatever it was he ate. It must have been some nasty stuff. Over the years, Charlie has eaten quite a few things he should not have eaten, but he has never gotten sick like this.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Friday, January 19, 2007, 22:36
First Alert
There I was Wednesday afternoon, minding my own business, working on a newspaper story, when I heard it. . .
Click. Click. Buzz. Whir. Click. Click. Buzz. Whir.
"What is that?" I said.
The noise stopped. And since I didn't hear it again, I went back to writing.
Click. Click. Buzz. Whir. Click. Click. Buzz. Whir.
"What *is* that?" I said.
I sat for a minute, listening. The noise was coming from under my desk.
I kneeled down on the floor.
Click. Click. Buzz. Whir. Click. Click. Buzz. Whir.
It was the battery back-up for the computer. And I found the noise highly annoying. The battery back-up was brand new last summer. Surely it couldn't be going bad already? This was the second battery back-up we've had. The first one only lasted two years. Ever since the power flickered and I lost an entire newspaper story a few years ago, I've been leery of working on the computer without a battery back-up.
As I looked at the battery back-up, I could see the green light flickering. And then the thing started beeping periodically. Along with Click. Click. Buzz. Whir. Click. Click. Buzz. Whir.
So, I did the sensible thing. I called my husband at work. He's the computer expert, after all.
"Maybe it's going bad," Randy said.
"It was brand new last summer!" I said.
"I'll call one of the techs and see if he knows what might be wrong with it," Randy said.
I went back to observing the battery back-up. And then a thought popped into my head.
"I wonder…" I said and headed for the telephone.
I called the electric company to see if there was problem with the electricity.
"No," said the woman who answered at the electric company (a rural electric cooperative) "not that we know of."
I told her the battery back-up for the computer was acting funny, and that I wondered if the power was flickering.
"I can send a crew to check," she said. "If there's a tree branch bumping on the line someplace, it could cause that kind of flickering."
"Okay," I said.
The battery back-up got so annoying that I finally shut down the computer and shut off the back-up so I wouldn't have to hear all the Click. Click. Buzz. Whir. Click. Click. Buzz. Whir. Not to mention the beeping.
Then I called Randy again.
"They said the battery back-up was probably going bad," Randy said.
"It's practically brand new!" I said. "I called the electric company to see if there was a problem with the electricity, and the lady said she would send a crew to check the lines."
At this point, I was becoming less convinced there might be a problem with the electricity, though. After all, everything else was running fine. The air filter in my office was humming away steadily. The refrigerator was running. The furnace was running. The microwave worked. The light above my desk was working.
By this time, it was too late in the afternoon to do any more writing anyway. I had to walk the dogs and then get ready to go to a county board meeting. Randy came home from work and said he would feed the horses.
It was while I was getting out of the shower that I noticed the lights flickering. I could also hear that Randy was plugging in the computer back-up into another outlet to check on it, but the beeping was so annoying, he unplugged it right away.
"The lights are flickering now," I yelled to Randy.
The words were no more out of my mouth when the phone rang. It was the neighbor. He wanted to know if our lights were flickering. Randy called the other neighbor, and she said their lights were flickering, too. Then Randy called the electric company.
When I got into the truck to leave for the board meeting, I noticed that the dusk-to-dawn light was flickering. Then it went out completely. As I drove out the driveway, the yard was dark.
I returned home more than three hours later to discover that the electricity had been off for almost an hour, according to clock on the stove. Randy had gone to a church council meeting and arrived home a little while after me.
"Yeah, the electricity went off not too long after you left," he said.
He leaned down and plugged in the computer battery back-up. The green light came on. But that was it. Otherwise it was as quiet as a mouse who knows there's a cat lurking nearby.
Thursday morning when I was working on newspaper stories again, trying to make up for the time I had lost the previous afternoon, the electric company truck pulled into the driveway. I went outside to talk to the crew.
"There was a switch burning out at the substation," the man said. "We lost power for about an hour last night while we were switching it to a back-up. We've got to switch it back today to a new one, but I don't think we'll lose power again."
I explained that my practically brand new computer battery back-up had been acting up and that's why I had called the electric company, wondering if the power was flickering. The lights started flickering in the evening, and then the neighbor called and my husband called the other neighbor and that's why we called the electric company again.
"Call any time," the man said. "You weren't the only ones in the area with flickering lights. Everybody's lights were flickering. That's when we thought we should start looking into it more."
I blinked once. Twice.
That's when we thought we should start looking into it more?
I opened my mouth to say something but decided against it. It sounded to me like one call from a woman who said her computer battery back-up might be indicating a problem with the electrical lines had not been enough to cause the crews from the electric company to launch a full-scale investigation immediately of the miles and miles of powerlines in the county.
I mean, really. The very idea. Don't they know who I am? A famous author? The *only* reporter for the county newspaper?
Oh, yes. That's right. I am a legend in my own mind but not in anyone else's.
"Like I said," the man continued, "we might lose power when we switch back today, but I don't think we will."
"I will just have to be sure save frequently on my newspaper stories," I said. "I'm surprised that my battery back-up was that sensitive to a problem with the electricity but I guess it was because I started having problems mid-afternoon. The lights and everything else didn't start acting up until in the evening."
The man nodded politely. The crew from the power company got in their truck and left, and I went back to work.
The electricity was fixed. And once Randy came home from work, I would again have a battery back-up on the computer.
You don't really think I would try to unplug all of that computer stuff, including the router for the high-speed Internet, and then try to get it all plugged into the back-up do you? If I thought I was having problems before, I would *really* have problems trying to do something that technical. . .
But best of all, we wouldn't need to buy another battery back-up. At least, not right now. . .
LeAnn R. Ralph