Snowed in!

Friday, Dec 18, 2009 – the big snowstorm!

Holy crow – this is the most snow we’ve had since we moved here.  Which is 10 years this Feb.   We never lost power although it flickered and struggled several times.  Which killed the fan I use for circulating heat down at the farm house but that’s minor damage all things considered.   I measured 11″ on the back deck Saturday morning- or about kitty ear high!!  Actually, judging from the prints – kitties sort of float on top.  And much prefer to be let back inside to rampage and tear up the upholstery in wild antics.

I tobogganed some hay out to each field Sat morning – the alpacas seemed semi-grateful.  No body was shivering.  Actually, with minimal wind – it really isn’t that cold and even the beans/pee weren’t frozen in the sheds.  Based on foot prints in the snow, girls have barely left the shed to go to the water tank.  Apparently they were content to wait for room service – they have a big hay bunk inside their shed.  Boys have been everywhere!  But I think they spent most of their time hanging out in the shed too.

Right now (Sun morning), all the alpacas are clustered around their hay bunks fueling up.  It snowed pretty much all day Saturday but lightly.  Nothing has melted though so I’m going to have to take them more hay today. I’ve got plenty of feed and enough hay for the next couple days but I’d feel better if I had a larger store of Hay here in the barn. I’ll be wanting to get some hay that I have stored over at Linda’s pretty soon – there is NO way the alpacas can get to the grass to graze.

Saturday Joe hooked up the scraper on the tractor planning to clear the driveway but our tractor is just too small for this job and that snow is like cement.  He said he could do it with the front loader but that’s silly, he’d have to clear 1 scoop at a time and we don’t have to be anywhere anyhow.  We’ll just wait for the sun to clear it off.

Henry and Molly had huge fun helping me and Joe with our endeavors this morning.  I think Henry the canine snow plow is the funniest thing ever – he just sticks that big old head down in the snow, snorts and shakes and then shoves forward.  Then looks up with a grin to make sure I’m watching!  Molly bounces and leaps – her tracks in the snow are funny.

Had an email back from Susie Friday afternoon, she was sitting in a ditch waiting for Brandon.  I think she was close to home.  That was almost 5 pm and I think she had gotten off work around 3′ish.  Poor thing.  Liza is on my mind too.  I don’t know where she is in all of this.

I got a little stuck myself Friday.  About noon the sun had come out and the snow had stopped and I said “aha!  perfect time to finish off the last few items on my Christmas list” so off I went.  Made good progress and was at the last shop when Joe called and said “you better get back here” because the snow is coming down pretty heavy.  I also wanted to hit Ingles (believing by now that we really were getting real snow this time) so I asked if I had time and he said “make it fast”.  So I flew around Ingles (me and a few thousand other shoppers!) throwing things in the basket and headed back up the hill.  Made it without even a slip all the way to just above the farmhouse driveway – right by the pond – and then I just could not make another inch forward.  It doesn’t look it but that’s actually a fairly significant slope from there up to the barn – you definitely feel it when you’re walking.  Anyway, the car just was not going to make it so I backed down to the parking area below the farmhouse and left the car there.

But!  I had all these groceries in the car which I didn’t want to leave out to freeze.  So I tromped up to the barn and got my toboggan, back down to the car, loaded up the groceries and hauled them up to the house.  Joe met me at the door looking at me like I was some sort of fool but I had fun in the snow and I got the groceries home!

Chicken soup for dinner tonight.  Yes, I have got a cold or something.  Feeling quite punkish – that might be part of why Joe thought I was being idiotic – but I really wanted to bring in the ingredients for him to make me some of his excellent chicken soup.  It’s Medicine to cure what ails you!!

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Tags: alpaca, alpacas, cats, dogs, snow storm