Snowbound in Everyday Ramblings

For us this is a big snow. You can’t tell from the picture but there is quite a bit of snow on the ground. I was watching the camellia bush from my bedroom window yesterday and just after sunrise this morning I got out and took this shot. It is snowing pretty hard now, but they are saying it is going to warm up and turn into icy rain later.

Kes and Most Honorable and the crew in Salem are just getting wind and ice and it is really hard on the trees down there. There are lots of branches down. And sadly, their power is out for at least a couple of days.

I can’t get my patio door open so I can’t get to the birdbath. I was able to hang a feeder by going out front and around. At least for now the snow is snow like normal winter snow where it is below freezing and not icy here yet and one can navigate one’s way around. I may try for a walk later.

We have canceled any friend walking and I am sad about that because it means no in person interaction until the thaw. I am not complaining though. I have power and provisions and it is a question of waiting it out.

But I am irritable anyway. As if there wasn’t already a sense of restriction with the pandemic.

Because we get snow so rarely the whole area shuts down and the sad part now is our vaccination centers are now shut down as well, which means all those excited 80-and 75-year-olds scheduled for their first shot over the next few days…

Charity will be 75 in July. Oh well, at least our case counts will go down with noone getting out.

Mrs. Sherlock and I watched this great presentation this week through the League of Women Voters on the local homelessness (or houselessness if you are sensitive to the terminology) situation with the key players in running the agencies chartered with helping and making services available. We are going to have a discussion on this all week after next.

When one is out and about it seems like the problem is huge and heartbreaking and honestly, like no one is doing anything about it. We have one of the biggest populations out on the streets in the country. But I learned we are doing a lot about it and the problem would be so much worse without the good work these exhausted dedicated people are doing.

We have approximately 4,000 people living on the streets in the metro area and over the last year only 160 of them have tested positive for Covid. We are getting them into voluntary isolation hotels.

These people who are in the trenches doing the work know exactly what we are seeing and dealing with and the level of suffering. They are focusing on families and keeping folks from losing their housing. We had this big bond issue last spring for homelessness and that money will come online shortly doubling the resources available.

That is going to happen just about the time the eviction bans are lifted. Unless we can get some Federal relief.

As I sit here snowbound, I tell you I am so grateful for all the resources I have, heat and a roof and for now, power.

The Park’s Department said they will be making the garden plot allocations in a few weeks. Like the camellias and almost unfurling daffodils covered in snow it seems so far away. But we just need to hold on and ride this out.

There is a preschool that is operating up the street and yesterday watching the little ones walk by (with their parents) full of wonder at the snow, their first snow; now that warms the heart.

That and all the happy dogs romping around out there.

Life sure is complicated there days. I guess it always has been, but I don’t remember a time where everything seemed so darn biblical.

Last updated February 13, 2021