A Missing Month

             

                         Photograph taken by the Richmond Times Dispatch on Interstate 64 which has fallen trees on both sides of the highway.

 

   I hadn't meant the entire month of January to fly by without any postings anywhere, and yet this is exactly what has happened.  The entire family caught a non-COVID influenza like illness which felled everyone like trees just after Christmas.  Just after, an unexpected storm with very wet snow and ice occurred overnight causing actually trees of all kinds to break wiping out everything from power lines to telephonic pedestal boxes and rupturing the actual roofing of many.  The result was a bit more than a week without electricity, and a bit more than two additional weeks without landline phone, cellular phone and internet.  A couple of additional storms made both restoration and getting out again less likely.

                  We pumped water for ourselves and the farm animals using the generator, and we ran the generator for a few hours each day, but shortages of diesel and propane meant that we could not run anything for very long.  In addition, shortages of hay for horses, dog and cat food make life difficult for us when we did get out again.

                Please check on your family and friends in the American Southeast.  This has been an uncommonly cold and difficult early Winter, even without the complications of supply line disruptions and fears for COVID.

                 Frankly, I'm glad Daniel missed this month here on Earth !