I'm dreaming of a white--Arbor Day?

There was one day last week when the air did not hurt my face when I opened the garage door. Just one. I did not even wear my winter coat.

In sharp contrast, Saturday was painful on exposed skin. Not only was a wicked cold wind blowing from the northeast, high-velocity, nearly-frozen raindrops pelted me like bbs. While the temperature was 35°F, the news reported that the wind chill was 22°. The girls were not eager to go outside, but did leave me alone to do my chores while they ate their scratch grain.

My choices for the day were yard work or shopping. Clearly, shopping won the day. Jane and I planned to go up to the outlet mall in Pleasant Prairie, WI. We still refer to this as “going to Kenosha” because that is where the really good outlet mall was back in the 80’s. Just a short time ago… I called her at 8:00 to work out the details. I had to make yogurt, do my physical therapy stretches, and shower. I thought I could be ready to leave by 10:00 to meet her in Lake Geneva at 10:30.

I was finishing a cup of tea after breakfast when the power went out. Terry called from the tractor shed to tell me that we could run an extension cord from an outlet that was powered by the back-up generator to get my car out of the garage. That seemed hard. I called Jane again, and she volunteered to pick me up. That seemed easier.

Cancel the yogurt. Cancel the shower (the generator supports the well pump, but apparently the tankless water heater relies on electric ignition—we had no hot water). Suddenly I had A LOT of time before I had to leave. I did my P. T. and got dressed. And I waited with no internet available to pass the time. I went through the junk mail that had accumulated during the week.

Still no power at 9:15, so I called Jane to tell her to come and get me. She got to my house at 10:35, and off we went to have fun. We passed the alpaca farm on Highway 67, but no alpacas were outside. I can’t imagine why. A white alpaca was sitting in the doorway of the barn gazing wistfully at the pasture.

We hadn’t been up to Kenosha in a long time. We went to Sketchers, Jockey, and Hanes/Bali/Champion. I got some shoes at Sketchers and a new pair of Champion work-out pants. Jockey was having a buy-2-get-1-free on underwear 3-packs. Bargain!

We had lunch at Culver’s, including the chocolate/almond/salted caramel custard of the day. We hadn’t tried that flavor before. We liked it. Chocolate almond fudge remains my favorite, however. There were no chocolate inclusions in the chocolate/almond/salted caramel, just the chocolate custard with ribbons of caramel and almond inclusions.

The rain turned to snow on the way home. Hilda had called me earlier to tell me that the power was not expected to be back on until 6:00. I had volunteered to pick something up for dinner, although almost immediately I realized we wouldn’t really pass anything close to home. I called back anyway, but Hilda said they had figured out how to make dinner in the electric skillet. I figured we could find something to eat. Jane and I had a late lunch; I wasn’t very hungry.

The white alpaca had given up dreaming of going outside and had its back to the door when we went by.

I was surprised to find Terry in his chair watching TV when I got home. He had extension cords strung all over. One was powering the TV and one lamp. He was rotating another one among the various freezers and spare refrigerator. We foraged salami sandwiches. Terry lit the stove with the charcoal lighter and warmed up some leftover noodles.

6:00 came and went with no power. Hilda called Com Ed again and got a revised time of 10:00. I got started on my bedtime preparations at 7:15 while it was still light out. Lo and behold, while I was brushing my teeth, the power came back on. We all heaved sighs of relief.

The wind blew all night, sometimes with rain, sometimes with ice, sometimes with freezing rain. Sunday morning, Hilda called a bit after 7:00 because the coop door was frozen shut. Terry got dressed and went out to chip away the ice. When I went out at 8:00 to take pictures, the wind was carrying frozen drops of rain.

Ice on the coop door

Here is the coop window. It does not have fancy wavy glass. It’s the ice that makes it look like that.

Coop window with ice making it "privacy" glass

Terry’s deer fence had blown over again. We are both amazed that a net catches that much wind.

Broken posts on the deer fence around the orchard

By 10:00, the frozen rain turned to snow.

Snow at 10:00 Sunday morning

At 10:35, it looked like a blizzard. 

Near blizzard conditions half an hour later

We got about an inch of heavy wet snow before it let up. Jane and I are glad we went shopping yesterday. We couldn’t have gotten out today. I spent most of the day in the kitchen make ham and beans for tomorrow night and cream of mushroom soup for later in the week (Jane and I stopped at the mushroom farm in Slades Corner on our shopping trip.) And I did my ironing. Perhaps one of the worst aspects of this long winter is that it has extended the Season of Shirts that Must be Ironed. It’s cold enough to continue wearing turtlenecks, but to do so in mid-April seems so wrong. I can’t switch to polos yet. That leaves the Oxfords, and the Oxfords must be ironed. I hope I won’t have to do that again until next fall.

The snow started again during supper. There won’t be enough for a snow day, but will likely be enough for a bad drive to work. When will spring really be here?