A Snippet of Frozen on the Homefront in Everyday Ramblings

The thaw finally begins. It is bad down where Kes lives. The roads are clear but everything else is a mess. We have a lot of trees here, that is one of the joys of living in this area. But now we have a lot of damaged trees. If you are an oil field worker looking for a growth field, arborist in the Pacific Northwest is your ticket out.

One of my students not only has bad damage to her roof but also serious damage to her garage. Kes and Most Honorable also have roof damage as well. And none of these people have had power since the middle of the night Friday. It is finally above freezing. They are all being incredibly supportive and creative, but it is hard times down there.

Here, the ice is melting so fast it looks like it is raining. After the heavy snowfall we had an ice storm up here as well. It is beautiful and absolutely deadly. Someone drove off our big Interstate freeway bridge that crosses the Columbia river last night. Into the river. Yikes.

I guess we are better off than the folks in Texas. We at least have a couple of mountains and some snow removal equipment.

Kes did laundry, ran their dishwasher and made scones on Friday before the outage. Yesterday on the phone she told me to make cookies in case we lost power here. She said that is one thing she wishes she has done.

This morning, thrilled to have heat when I woke up, I made oatmeal, walnut, dried cranberry cookies. I took a tin over to Charity. We can both attest we had oatmeal for breakfast. :)

It wasn’t exactly what I would call a productive weekend. I am doing an excellent job of procrastinating on a couple of things. Today I have my Business Call and am teaching. I’ll need to work out to get my cardio as well.

Tomorrow, if the roads clear a bit it will be a delivery extravaganza. Everything is delayed. I have groceries ordered but they may not come until later and I totally get that.

We are hoping against hope to get out to walk on Wednesday.

And can I just say how grateful I am for all the power crews working round the clock out there. They just buried a big line here that has taken months but could be why we still have power.
After the fires last summer there are no generators to be had. People were driving up from California to snag one.

If you are so inclined, please wish those beleaguered folks south of us restoration of their power. They are saying tomorrow. At least it has warmed up and that is a blessing.

This ice storm is going to be life changing for a number of folks. Once the pandemic is addressed and the real estate market stabilizes, I think we may see a whole cohort of folks moving out of their homes making way for young energetic families that have the energy to deal with what climate change has in store for us next.

Last updated February 15, 2021