Weather, Airport delays, still no septic

The weather became a major issue for Mama on Friday. It was supposed to turn bad but the worst weather was not supposed to get to our area until the afternoon – or at least the late morning. That was not the way it happened. The temperature was in the high twenties as we left the house in Chico at about 8:30. Mama’s flight was scheduled for 11:40.

The freezing rain came in from the northeast as we neared the airport and quickly covered the roads with ice. Mama and I got to Terminal E at DFW in plenty of time for her to get checked in but with the construction being done at the terminal and with the difficulty in finding a place to park we ended up having to walk a good distance to get her to the proper gate. Once she was headed to security I headed back home. That it when the fun really started.

By the time I got to the highway I needed to be on for the drive home the roads were miserably wet and slick. I slipped and slid around at least twenty accidents within the next forty miles and drove at a leisurely top speed of about 15 mph.  It took me three plus hours to get home. Meanwhile Mama’s flight had been cancelled and she had been rerouted to another terminal for a stand-by status on another flight – which also did not work out. Six cancellations later she was still at the airport.

I let her know that there was no possible way I could come back to the airport to get her, especially after dark, because all the major roads to the airport were shut down by wrecks and tangled traffic from the afternoon when everybody headed home from work and school. The last report I heard on the traffic said that the accident total for all DFW was well above 2500. The police were overwhelmed, wrecker services were overwhelmed and still people involved in fender bender accidents refused to move their vehicles off the roads; making traffic scoot around them on the icy roads. The total precipitation was between three and four inches of snow and about a half inch of ice.

Mama did finally get to Pensacola at 6 pm Saturday evening. The whole weather thing interfered with the original excuse for her trip but that was a moot point by then. She will be coming home on Friday. Hopefully the weather will be better this time although we are expecting another blast of snow and ice on Wednesday. The temperature on Wednesday is supposed to fall from fifty degrees into the twenties by midafternoon with a wintery mix to accompany the frigid temperatures; lovely.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch we still have no functioning septic system. The two tanks are slowly filling up and no one has been able to look at the issue and give us an estimate on the repairs. I hope we will get that number and commitment today but with the weather we are expecting it could be another week to ten days before we get the repair done and in service. I am tempted to set up an outhouse  but that would be really miserable.

It’s life on the farm.