Monday, December 25, 2006, 05:06

A Lucky Break

We got a lucky break the other night.

That's what the guy from the electric company said when they came to check out our powerlines.

Thursday night when I went out with Charlie, it caught my eye right away -- an open flame up on top of the powerline strung across our driveway.

When I took a closer look, I saw that the jack pine nearby was so heavy with ice that the branch was weighted down to the point where it was touching the electrical wire. And as it rested against the wire, the electricity running through the wire was doing its best to make sure the tree caught on fire.

I went back in the house and called the electric company. The lady I talked to said she would give the information to the crew, although as long as we were not without power (which we weren't), she figured they might not get to it until the next day.

Sure enough, about noon on Friday, the truck pulled in.

By that time, of course, it had warmed up enough so that most of the ice had melted off the trees and the branch was no longer resting on the electrical wire.

I explained the situation to the two-man crew. Crews from the power company had been out all night, and this particular crew had been working since 6:30 a.m.

The man from the electric company told me that in most cases, the branch will burn off and that's the end of it, especially with a small branch.

"We sure got lucky, though, didn't we," he said.

I knew what he meant. If the weather had kept up with the freezing rain the way it was when I went to town to get that criminal complaint Thursday afternoon, lots of trees would have lost branches and the electricity would have been out. Thursday afternoon it was beginning to freeze onto the powerlines and the trees and the road and the road signs. But by Friday morning, it had warmed enough to melt most of the ice, except off the roads.

I thanked the crew for taking the time to come out on Friday and check on it. They said it was their job to do so and that they were mostly taking care of small problems, anyway.

Even as it is, though, it is icy enough on the ground. The dirt road north of our place is quite icy. The ground in general is slick with ice. Some of the water pooled up and froze, but it also saturated the ground to a certain extent so the ground is kind of slippery everywhere, but especially on slopes.

Could have been worse, though. Much worse.

LeAnn R. Ralph

Saturday, December 23, 2006, 03:41

Hope Springs Eternal

I admire the snowmobile clubs around here.

Every year, they go around to landowners, seeking permission to put their trails across fields and through small sections of woods.

Every year, they mark their trails and put out their little stop signs and yield signs and arrow signs.

And in this week's local paper (not the newspaper I write for), there is a picture of a group of kids who finished their snowmobile safety course.

We haven't had much significant snow for 30 years. And out of the last 11 years, we've had significant snow for only two years.

When I was a kid and on up until a few years after I graduated from high school, it would start snowing in November and it would keep snowing until late March. The snowmobile trails would open by early December, or sometimes by Thanksgiving, and they would stay open straight through the winter.

There were trails everywhere leading from one town to the next to the next. People would spend many hours during the summer brushing out the miles of trails through the woods. In the winter on weekends, especially, you could hear the constant whine and drone of snowmobiles winding their way through the woods and across fields and using those trails that had been trimmed up during the summer.

Nowadays, the snowmobile clubs are lucky if the trails are open one or two weekends out of the winter, never mind all winter long. The trails that were cut through the woods to give snowmobilers routes to get from town to town have long since grown over. I don't think you can even *find* the trail that went through the woods not far from my house. And because there is not much snow, you never see groups of snowmobiles traveling anywhere.

And yet, every year, the snowmobile clubs make their rounds to landowners and spend hours marking the trails and putting up signs.

Of course, if it ever does start snowing again, all of those people who thought it would be so quaint and charming to "live in the country" aren't going to like it very much. As it is, when we get four inches of snow, they are complaining to the town boards because their road was not plowed out first. If we end up with two or three feet of snow at a time, they are going to be spending at least a day at home away from work. And they're going to be frantically calling around to find someone to clear that charming quarter mile driveway they wanted to get them away from the road as far as possible.

Then again, if it ever starts snowing again, those people who kept their snowmobiles and who keep the trails marked are merely going to hop on their machines and go on their merry way.

Oh, yes, indeed. I admire the tenacity and persistence of the snowmobile clubs. I could learn a thing or two from them about maintaining a sense of faith and hope.

Look What I Can Do! We had just come in from feeding the horses and taking the dogs for a walk Friday evening. I sat down to sort through the mail. At one point, Randy came into the kitchen looking for the digital camera. "It's on my desk," I said. He got the camera, and then I was conscious of him snapping pictures -- of all places -- in the bathroom.

"You have to come and see this," he said. "And you can't get mad."

Of course, right away I knew it had something to do with Snowflake. It was eight weeks ago today that I brought her in the house -- eight weeks ago that all of her brothers and sisters died. But somehow, Snowflake hung on. I think of her as my little mischievous miracle . . .

And mischievous is right. Look at what she did to the toilet paper (also notice the socks that have been scattered around her on the floor; she LOVES to play with socks -- doesn't matter if they are on your feet or off!).

LeAnn R. Ralph