10/31/2020
So the farming progress was forcibly put on hold this week...we had a very unexpected winter storm. No snow, but everything else from freezing rain that knocked our power out, to thunder and lightning while it was sleeting, to heavy rain and high winds. Had to clean up and move limbs every time I had to go get generator fuel or go to work for four days just to be able to get out. Had to park and walk up and get the tractor and do it again every time I got home all four of those days also, just to make the last 100 yard push up the driveway. The quickest I did it was about 45 minutes on Monday (day 1) evening. We left to get fuel for the generator and came back and limbs were already down. Every other time, it was between an hour and a half and two hours of cleanup. We may be without power for a while. There are poles down and lines laying for miles around here. This started on the 26th, and I feel fortunate that I finally saw a crew in our area last night. Still about 5 miles away, but they’re close. Prayers for these dedicated hard working people out rebuilding infrastructure and restoring power. Prayers for those less fortunate that don’t have a generator to run on. We’ve been checking on and doing what we can for neighbors. We’ve had our generator going since Monday at 2, long enough to figure up fuel usage. We are averaging about .75gal/hr of fuel usage, and that’s living very conservatively. Monday at 2 thru today at 7, that’s 113 hours on the generator and roughly 85 gallons of gas filled out of 5 gallon cans. I just got back from getting another 75 gallons, I’ve adapted and made other means of storing so I don’t have to go so much. That was a lot of trips to the store to fill cans, and unloading and carrying the cans. I’m very grateful to be able, but it’s getting tiresome. Christy has been helping fill the generator and doing everything she can to make it easy on me when I get home. She and Logan have been cleaning up limbs with the hopes I could have driven right in, but the cleanup never seemed to last very long. Limbs braking under the weight of all the ice constantly. I believe the reality of it is our leaves hadn’t had a chance to fall off yet, so that offered a whole lot more real estate for the freezing rain to build up on and that is a tremendous amount of weight at that point. We will be cleaning up for months, but that’s alright, we’re all safe and staying warm, and at least we can!!! On a positive note, they’ve been out of school all week because of the same weather/power outages, so she’s had time to play and we’ve eaten good!!! The highlight for me, she made some Banana bread and it was the best ever!!!! We’ve got some good videos we’ll be editing and uploading in the near future. Stay tuned!!
