Stepping Up To The Plate

As I mentioned in my last post no one was stepping up to the plate and fulfilling expected roles. We had a major snow event on the way and everyone was trying to sleep through it. No State of Emergency from TEMA, Giles County hadn't closed the schools, Jason forgot to take the battery out of the tractor. It was like everyone forgot we were still living in the south. I realize we have had a decidedly un-southern winter but come on everyone, we all have roles and responsibilities here!!

Shortly after I published the blog post on Tuesday evening Giles County was the first to step up to the plate. They announced that the schools would be closed on Wednesday. OK, things were starting to feel more normal. Snow was predicted (yes predicted, not actually happening) and schools were closed.  All right, now it was starting to feel like I was living on the right planet again. 

However TEMA was still asleep at the wheel. We had a snowstorm predicted and we were hearing crickets from them. Are we not supposed to be declared in a State of Emergency when faced with the possibility of snow? It was really bothering me. I have to give a shout out to my friend Sheila who let me know that finally TEMA got with the program and announced that Tennessee was in a State of Emergency mid-morning on Wednesday. At that point I relaxed considerably, things really were getting back to normal. 

On the other hand our weather forecasters, as usual, had everything pretty much wrong. We had been hearing for days that it was going to start snowing by 6am Wednesday morning and keep snowing through the evening. We were supposed to have inches of accumulation. We haven't had snow to play in for three years so I was actually looking forward to the snow. So you can imagine how disappointed I was when 6am came and went with  no snow. Then 7am came and went with snow, as did 8am, 9am, 10am, 11am, noon . . . you get the picture here. 

At about 2pm it finally started to snow. It had stopped snowing by about 6pm. If we are generous we had maybe a half inch of accumulation of snow (about 1.2cm for my Canadian friends).  As I walked along our driveway at 6:30am this morning it was bare and dry for almost the full mile with a few exceptions in the shaded areas. The high today was in the upper 40's, by noon the snow was gone. I ran around frantically taking pictures this morning, desperately trying to get some snow pictures of the horses before it all melted. 

The best part of the morning was the exchange Jason and I had regarding Carter going to his daycare today, it was a true North vs. South exchange.  Carter goes to daycare three days per week for a half day and today would normally have been one of those days. I told  Jason to get Carter dressed in his Carrhart overalls and coat. With a puzzled look he asked "why?"

Me: Well he isn't going to go to daycare this morning

Jason: (very puzzled and confused) Why?

Me:  Because it snowed. No one will be there. (said in a "duh" voice)

Jason: But our driveway is bare and dry, so is the road (still sounding puzzled and confused)

Me:  I know that BUT IT SNOWED (said in a voice that was starting to get irritated)

Jason;  (getting frustrated) I KNOW IT SNOWED but what does that have to do with going to daycare?

Me:  He'll be there by himself. No one will be there.

Jason: But why?

Me:  BECAUSE IT SNOWED. HOW MANY TIMES MUST I SAY THIS?

Jason: But the roads are fine. People still have to go to work, he won't be there by himself.

Me:   No one is going to work. Everyone will stay home. No one will be at daycare. IT SNOWED. I repeat IT SNOWED.  *headdesk headdesk headdesk* 

Jason: (sounding like a broken record at this point) But why??

We finally called Carter's daycare and, exactly as I said, no one was there. They said we could bring Carter if we wanted but he would be there by himself.  Poor Canadian Jason is still trying to understand this hours later as I type. I am pretty sure he is still muttering "but the roads are fine."  

And so winter goes in the south.

This facebook picture captures the conversation perfectly:

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Lofty, Silver and Romeo

Asterik and Lotus

Lily

Cuffie

Hemi

Johnny braved it in the snow without a blanket

Toledo

Largo

Fabrizzio, Noble and Walden

Cocomo and Silver

Flyer trotting through the snow

Donneur

B-Rad

Moe and Ritchie were only interested in breakfast, they didn't care about the snow or pictures

Elfin and Grand

Sebastian and Lighty

Johnny

Dutch

I love the morning light in this picture of Timbit, Miracle and Griselle

Murphy

snowy sunrise . . .

. . . and the same view this afternoon

Glimmer of Hope

If we can survive the next 24-ish hours, and if our weather forecast has even a remote chance of being correct, we may finally be getting a break from this miserable time of year known as winter. Even better I  might feel like complaining writing about something other than the weather. If you have read this blog in the last five weeks you might have noticed that the weather has been, well, awful. 

However we do have to get through the next 24-ish hours and supposedly that might prove to be kind of difficult. The weather models show that we are expected to get our first measurable snowfall in three years at the farm. We have had flurries a few times but it has been three years since we had accumulating snow at the farm. Depending on which forecast you read we are supposed to get anywhere from a half inch to six inches of snow. Don't bother going to the grocery store now folks, I can assure you there is nothing left to buy. 

There are three things that I find surprising about our current situation. The first one is that TEMA has not declared a State of Emergency. It is true, I looked, we are all so beaten down by the weather even TEMA is unable to muster themselves into a State of Emergency. We are however at Level IV - elevated. 

The second is that our county has still not closed the schools despite the fact that several of our neighboring counties have already officially closed the schools for tomorrow. Normally if they even forecast snow the schools are closed but apparently this time they are waiting until it actually snows to close them. Who would have thunk it? All of us poor souls in middle Tennessee have been so worn out by the weather that the schools have not been closed in anticipation of snow and we are not living in a State of Emergency. Unbelievable. We are a disgrace to ourselves as southerners. 

The third thing that is surprising to me is that Jason forgot to bring our tractor battery into the house and place it inside the pantry last night. It went down in the teens last night and there was no battery sitting in our pantry between the potato chips and the jar of honey. Even Jason is falling down on the job, not just TEMA and Giles County. It was so . . . weird . . . having a cold night and no tractor battery nestled amongst the food items.  What seemed bizarre and unthinkable to me a few weeks ago has started to feel normal.  What can I say, we all feel like limp dishrags that have been wrung out over and over and over. TEMA, Giles County, even Jason, all of us are OVER. IT. To illustrate how dire things have been it was almost 40 F and sunny yesterday afternoon and we were talking about it being a nice day. WTF??

Anyway, supposedly we have a snowpocolypse heading our way tomorrow. But after that there is a glimmer of hope. I see temperatures mostly in the 50s and 60s in our ten day forecast. Please, oh please, let it be true.

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O'Reilly and Noble

Walden and Merlin

Leo, Baby and Tony

Apollo and Hemi

Rip and Elfin

Walon and Oskar

Faune and Donneur

Silver, Gus and George

Maisie and Lily

Dolly, Cinnamon and MyLight

Bergie giving a tutorial on the perfect roll. We do the first side . . . 

. . . then we sit up so we can flip over to the other side . . . 

. . . then we thoroughly coat the other side while making sure we grind our head into the mud for thorough coverage . . . 

. . . then we sit up and make sure the photographer has thoroughly documented our work

Sunday Stills

Grand and Rip having fun

I'm not sure why Homer and Moe were both sticking their tongues out

Rocky and Largo

Kennedy

Sebastian and Wiz hanging out

Murphy and Johnny having fun

Lotus and Romeo were being goofy

Norman, Lily and Dolly were all asleep

Technical Issues

After going around in circles with blogger for almost an hour I am throwing in the towel for the evening. We'll try again later.  At the moment I consider it a minor miracle that blogger finally agreed to publish these three sentences.

F Is For . . .

I spent a lot of time in the month of January wishing for warmer weather. After dealing with polar vortexes 1, 2 and 3 I was pretty over the whole thing. The universe finally took note of my wishes and we have had much more normal temperatures the last several days. However in a classic case of "be careful what you ask for because you just might get it" Mother Nature has now gifted us with a deluge of rain. Last night it rained quite a bit overnight, then cleared up for several hours today, and then it started raining again this afternoon. So far in the last 24 hours we had two inches of rain and counting. It is pouring rain as I type. 

I will take this as a lesson learned and going forward I will be much more specific in my thoughts. For all who are anxiously wondering what I will be thinking in regards to the weather I shall be careful to consistently long for pleasant weather conditions. I'm hoping that is sufficient enough to yield better results than simply thinking "please let me have warmer temperatures" since the results have been less than satisfying. I'm definitely not going to think warm and dry as that will just lead to 100 degrees and a drought or something.

I am not sure how much more awesomeness from the weather I can take this winter. (for anyone who missed it that was typed with sarcasm) For about the 19th time this winter I will probably cry myself to sleep tonight as I prepare to dream about mud. Horse blankets coated in mud. Horses coated in mud. Me coated in mud. I really need to learn how to embrace my inner hippie and love mud and having everything in my life coated in mud. 

As I sat in one of the barns today stitching up (another) ripped blanket I could not help but think that the universe was having a great laugh at my expense. After I lovingly sewed up the latest and greatest torn blanket I realized that my repair job had taken the form of a great big F. Seriously, I can't make this up. 

Someone out there is having a laugh at my expense

I sat there looking at this great big F and tried to determine exactly what message the universe was trying to send me. Clearly someone, somewhere was having a laugh at my expense. I'm not sure if I was being told to eff off, or if I was being told I was a failure and getting an F at life or what. Feel free to offer me any of your interpretations of my F. There are endless ways one could interpret this. I shall leave you all with that thought. 

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Walon

Darby and Alex

George, Asterik, Faune, Flyer and Donneur

Chance and Ritchie

Donovan and Bergie

Traveller, Calimba and Cinnamon

Levendi

Sunday Stills

MyLight and Silky

Rip trying to decide "do I want to roll again or do I want to get up?"

Lucky, Walden and Lightning

Toledo, Clayton and Largo giving me the usual  morning look of  "you're going to feed us, right?"

Griselle, Timbit and Sparky were on the move

Sebastian and B-Rad

O'Reilly, Walden and Lucky

Largo, Donovan and Oskar

Stormy

Norman and Traveller

Lighty and Murphy play all the time