Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Christmas Blizzard.....

It has been forever since I have posted!! It started snowing the day before Christmas Eve. I did get to work on Wednesday and Thursday until noon and the roads weren't too bad coming home from work. We packed up the suburban and were heading down to Andy's and got about two miles from home and we could barely see for the snow. Crazy!! We called them and headed back home. We ate from the pot of soup we were taking and later popped popcorn and made hot cocoa and played UNO and Aggrevation and watched Christmas shows and watched it snow.

Christmas day and Virgil and June's was also cancelled. It snowed about a foot and the wind was still blowing. At noon, I fixed the guys shrimp and stir-fried veggies and made little individual mixed berry cobblers. We played more games and watched more Christmas shows, and put together a Charlie Brown Christmas puzzle on the dining room table...until around 6 pm, when we lost power. We went down to the shop and got the generator out. Of course, no gas in the gas can, so we had to get gas out of the 4-wheeler, then drug it back up to the house through the drifts. No photos of that, just interested in figuring out how to heat the house in the below 0 windchill for the night. (Our power company told us a substation was down and over 250 homes were without power and the roads were impassable...so hunker down for the night...) We did not used the generator all night until about 6 am. It was still 61 degrees in here.

I don't know if Michael was still shaken by the lights being off all evening and night or if the flickering candles and oil lamps bothered him, but he had a grand mal seizure around midnight. He has been seizure free since last winter, and had taken all his meds. I doubt a person ever gets used to seeing people they love go through something like that. He is just exhausted for about an hour afterward and did not want to go back to bed. He came down to the living room and we slept on the floor down there under a bunch of comforters.

I was thankful for my gas cooktop. I also had ran a few gallons of water in pitchers before the lights went out. (They flickered a few times before going out for good). We had our eggs and grilled bread for breakfast and heated our soup back up for lunch. Our corded phone still worked and I could still get email on my phone and we each have cell phones, so Little House on the Prarie we were not... We scooped snow away from the garage and hauled the generator back down to the shop so we could get the shop door open and get the big tractor and scoop out so he could move snow. We had no idea how long the power would be out and he wanted to try to get to town to get more gas for the generator. Power did come back on after lunch and Michael went straight down and put a movie on and worked on another puzzle in his beloved basement. =) These are photos of where Blum's used to live, a mile east around the corner.
Steve called them and asked if they needed help digging out. They were so grateful!!


Their little boys were loving all this snow!!


We did not have that big of drifts at our place..especially up around the house.

This was our biggest drift...down around the grain bins. Steve had to cut through this because he needs to keep hauling beans and corn....
This is in front of our garage as I am standing on our deck. I have had enough snow....hope this is it for a while..... =)

4 comments:

Andy said...

I always love the beauty of the snow...until I have to start scooping it :) Great pictures!

Anna said...

Oh my goodness I didn't hear about Michael's recent seizure! Glad he's okay and you got through the storm...and I second what Andy said about the snow. It's wonderful to have 4 seasons. :)

cheryl said...

I hadn't heard about Michael either. So glad he's okay. And that snow...sheesh...we've got nuttin' compared to you! Lets go SOUTH!!! ; )

Sandy B said...

Can't get enough of those pics from the old place!