And boy it was a cold one! Today is the halfway point between the Winter Solstice and the Vernal Equinox...winter is half over! The past couple of days we have had freezing rain alternating with sleet and snow. The ground is covered with a couple inches of ice, which then got covered with an inch of snow. Very dangerous out there. The wind didn't help much either...gusting beyond 40mph in some spots. Looking outside it just looked like a big white nothing. Though when the wind died down we saw the effects of all that heavy ice and the strong winds. We have tree limbs down everywhere, but luckily nothing else worth noting. The barns are all intact, as well as our siding, lol.
We did lose power last night around 10 PM, and it didn't get fixed until around 11AM the next day. With no electricity we did not have heat! The interior temperatures went from 67* to 40* when the electricity returned. We were just in the midst of planning our escape, to my husbands parents' home, when the power came back on. It's a good thing, too, because it was dangerous outside...and they ended up losing electricity right after that. Can you imagine...packing up and making the dangerous treck over there only to have to turn back around?!
This day also reminded us that we are not prepared for such emergencies. We are in tornado territory. In fact, the past two years we have had tornadoes touch down within five miles of us. But we never seem to get around to gathering our necessary supplies. No water, no crank radio... And we definitely need an alternative heat or power source. I think we may want to skip the generator and go straight towards solar power. Oh, one can dream, huh. But then again...if the power goes out it is up to us to fix.
So we began the day with double socks, sweatshirts, pants, hats, gloves, and piles of blankets playing board games on the guest bed with candles as lighting...to shedding our layers and getting back into technology. Kids with their Wii, and internet searches for oddball marine life, Dad watching a hockey game on satellite tv, and me blogging away at the laptop.
We did watch some pretty interesting TED talks on ocean life.
David Gallo on Underwater Astonishments and Life in the Deep Oceans.
And Brian Skerry on Ocean's Glory and Horror.
And we watched the movie Finding Nemo...love that!
