Tuesday, March 14, 2006, 19:27
Scenes from the Blizzard of March 2006
I could not take any pictures on Monday while it was snowing because the digital camera was in Randy's truck 15 miles away. Even if I could have gotten out of the driveway, I still would not have been inclined to drive through the snow to get the camera!
So, I took some pictures Tuesday morning, instead.
After 13 inches of heavy, wet snow on Monday, everything is covered with white. The porch railing for one thing. The bird feeder for another.
Because the air was so warm when it started snowing, lots of icicles are hanging off the roof of the house.
The pine trees on the neighbor's land are covered with white, as well.
And once again, there's a sizable pile of snow in the lower driveway!
I took the dogs out for a snowshoe walk Tuesday morning. Silly me. I had forgotten how much work it is to break trails through 13 inches of snow. The snow was actually deeper than that in some places, though, where the snow had drifted in. At first, Pixie and Charlie did not want to go with me. They must have thought I had lost my mind. Eventually they did go. Pixie stayed behind me the whole way, walking in the trail I was clearing with the snowshoes. Even at that, it was hard going for her.
Monday night, one of the kitties was curled up under the quilt on the bed. Randy stuck the camera under the quilt and got this picture of Bobby Cat, and this picture.
I am taking my little gray kitten Sophie into the vet clinic later Tuesday afternoon. They will do the spay surgery on Wednesday, and she will be able to come home again on Thursday.
Poor little Sophie. Now I'm going to spend the next two days worrying about her!
LeAnn R. Ralph
Tuesday, March 14, 2006, 05:09
A Wild and Wooly Day
As I stood on the porch and looked toward the barn through the curtain of heavily falling snow Monday morning while I waited for Pixie to finish her business -- I could hardly believe my eyes.
A black horse with a white blaze on her face was galloping through the garden.
What in the world was a horse doing in the garden? I have two horses, of course, but both of them were in their pastures. As far as I knew, at any rate. No -- a horse in the garden was out of the question. Wasn't it?
"Isabelle!" I said. "What are you doing down there?"
Great. Not only was it snowing harder than I had seen it snow in nine years. But Isabelle was out.
I dashed back into the house, put on a different pair of boots, grabbed my hat and gloves and waded through the shin deep snow down to the barn.
By the time I got there, Isabelle was on the other side of the barn, pawing in the manure pile. And as I watched, she collapsed and then proceeded to roll in the manure.
Now how in blue blazes did Isabelle get out of her pasture?
And more importantly, how was I going to catch her and get her back where she belonged?
Isabelle broke her halter a while back, and since then, I have not put a halter back on her. She was developing a dent in her nose from the weight of the halter, and I wanted her nose to recover.
I waded across the lawn to the pasture to see if I could find any breaks in the fence. It wouldn't do any good to put Isabelle back in her pasture if the fence was down.
When I got to the lane, I saw that Isabelle had spent some time in the lane, judging by the tracks and beaten down snow. I also noticed that she had spent some time by the barn, pawing in the tomato bed.
It was snowing so hard, I could barely see across the pasture. The pink tape that I had tied onto the fence last summer, however, was visible in spite of the heavy snow, and from what I could determine, the fence was still up all around the pasture.
So the question remained: how had Isabelle gotten out?
And the more important question also still remained: how was I going to get her back in?
My Morgan-Arab cross, Kajun, was running around his pasture like he had lost his mind. Isabelle was standing by the gate on the hayfield side of Kajun's pasture.
I untied the gate leading into Isabelle's pasture, then I went into the barn, grabbed Kajun's halter, and waded through the snow around to the back of the barn. It was bad enough that it was snowing so hard. The last thing I wanted to do was chase a horse around a five-acre hayfield. Especially since the snow was already fairly deep. But I knew I had to try to catch Isabelle. She couldn't stay out in the blizzard all day long. No telling what trouble she might get into.
"Isabelle," I said. "Come here, sweetie."
Isabelle threw her head up, took one look at me -- and came trotting over.
"Hi, Isabelle," I said. "Come on, girl."
Talk about stupid. "Come on girl?" It wasn't like Isabelle was going to follow me, or anything like that.
I turned to walk around the barn. . .and. . .wonder of wonders. . .Isabelle walked right along beside me. She walked beside me across the lawn to the lane. I pulled open the gate, and Isabelle trotted right into her pasture.
I could hardly believe it.
When horses are out where they do not belong, they generally do not want to be caught because they are having TOO MUCH FUN.
And yet, Isabelle willingly followed me back to her pasture.
Amazing.
I still did not have any idea of how Isabelle got out. Was it possible she had slipped through the fence where the wires are loose because a couple of staples are missing?
After Isabelle was in her pasture again, I got a flake of hay for her and one for Kajun. Then I struggled through the snow back to the house. I figured I'd let them eat their hay and calm down a little bit first before giving them their grain.
A short while later I went downstairs to let Charlie out. I had to push him out the door. Our Springer Spaniel did not want to go outside in the blizzard.
Can't say as I blamed him. I did not want to go back out in the blizzard, either.
By the time I had finished feeding Kajun and Isabelle their grain and had reinforced the fence with some braided twine string where the staples were gone, Charlie was more than ready to go back into his kennel in the basement. I was ready to go back into the house, too. I was covered with snow. And it was still snowing so hard I could not see across the road.
I decided that a snowstorm outside was the perfect time for me to work inside.
Unfortunately, there was so much snow on the electrical lines that when I turned on the computer, the power flickered and the computer kept shutting off unexpectedly. After the computer shut off for the second time -- and lost everything I had just written -- I gave up. No sense in trying to work if the computer kept quitting on me.
It snowed hard all day long, with the wind blowing at a steady clip out of the north. When it stopped snowing this evening, we had gotten 13 inches of heavy, wet snow.
After Randy came home from work, we started the snowblower. The snowblower does not like to start very easily, so we took turns pulling on the starter rope. We got the snowblower running eventually (after I took out the spark plug and squirted in some gasoline ), and while I cleared the paths around the house, Randy used the tractor to clear the driveway.
We finally finished up at 7 p.m.
I am happy to report that Isabelle stayed in her pasture for the rest of the day. I think by the time I found her Monday morning, she was confused and frightened and had no idea what she was supposed to do or where she was supposed to go. When she got back into her own pasture, she went into her shelter to get out of the snow and stayed there for most of the day.
"Surprise" Craft Sale
I took my books to another craft sale on Saturday. Left home at 7 a.m. Came back home at 6 p.m.
My friend Vickie, the one who makes soap, called Thursday to say she was booked for a craft sale on Saturday and wanted to know if I wanted to share the space with her. The sale was at a small elementary school in Eau Claire (30 miles away). They were holding the event to raise money to buy playground equipment.
I don't think they made much money for their playground. You would think that a city of 60,000 could draw a fair number of people to an event. Only about a hundred people came through.
It wasn't a craft sale, either, really. Me, Vickie and one other lady who designed clothes were the only people with our own items. The rest of the 20 or so vendors represented companies -- Silpada jewelry, Tupperware, home decorating parties. I sold three books. Vickie sold 10 bars of soap. And we sat there from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. Loooooooong day. I was glad Vickie asked me to go. If she'd had to sit there by herself, that would have been really bad for her. As it was, we had plenty of time to talk and catch up.
One interesting thing that happened Saturday was when a lady came up to me and asked if I was "related to the Ralph who is a teacher." I had to think about that for a few moments. Then I realized she was talking about my nephew. It turned out that her son is in my nephew's automotive class.
So, all in all, Saturday was a long day and not a very good sale, but it was fun to spend time with my friend, anyway.
LeAnn R. Ralph
