Class, waiting, hoping we are ready

While Mama traveled yesterday to visit with Kimberlyn and pick up feed in Muenster, I taught a class. A very full class. I had to stay over a little longer in this class to give the test to someone who could not access the Google form we use for participants to take the test. It is not uncommon for some company protocols to block the test form. When that happens, we give the exam to participants orally – one person at time. I had to give the test to four participants in one class recently. That took about an hour. I read the question-and-answer pairs and the person being tested selects their choices for each pairing. I mark that selection on the test from for them as they make their selection. It is a little disconcerting to some of the participants who are tested in that way, but the gentleman who took the orally presented test yesterday was not at all impaired with my reading of the questions and answer choices to him.

It did make me late leaving the HQ house and as I did so I ran into a mess. The only choice of routes home was blocked by a multi-vehicle accident. Apparently, the accident had only recently happened because all the vehicles, two trucks, and three cars were still littered on or near the road – blocking both lanes of the two-lane road and both shoulders of that roadway. I looked for alternate routes home, but most would have taken me thirty to forty minutes out of my way, so I queued into the traffic at the driveway of the house and waited. There were seven or more police vehicles on scene, two ambulance, one fire truck and many tow trucks lined up waiting to begin the process of moving the damaged vehicles. That took about an hour to accomplish, so I sat in the Sequoia and listened to the Dan Bongino podcast as I waited. So, it was not a complete waste of time.

Once home, Trace and I got the feed into the shop and the bales of hay Mama had purchased offloaded from the truck. I wanted to place the bales in the goat barn but Monday evening I sealed up both ends of the loft so I did not have the easy access I typically have to place the hay in the loft. I sealed the loft because we are expecting freezing rain and snow over the next two days, and I did not want to have that accumulate on the floor of the loft. Plus, closing those openings completely takes a bit of the draft out of the barn giving the goats a better selection of places to rest that will be free of overhead drafts and blowing snow. The east side of the goat barn is open because the goats do not like complete enclosures. Most of the time that works well, but with the coming cold snap I do wish I could give them a warmer area to bed down. Oh, well, they will manage. At least there will be no snow blowing in overhead.

Mama and I are about as ready as we can be for the cold temperatures. The wind has picked up and the temperatures are rapidly falling. Predicted low for tonight is the low twenties with freezing rain turning to sleet then turning to snow as the day progresses. The next several days will stay at or below freezing with the overnight lows in the teens with one or two nights predicted to be in the single digits. That is cold for our area. That is really cold for our animals…especially my bees. I feel like I have done all I can to prepare. We will wait to see what more can be done as the opportunity arises. So far Mama is not asking to keep the animals in the house through the cold nights.

With the road conditions deteriorating rapidly late in the day and worsening overnight, I will need to teach tomorrows class from the house. I have not done so before, but I am hopeful it will work out well enough. It is only a half-day class so I will be done by noon if all goes well. The main roads have been treated in anticipation of the freezing rain, but our little county road will not be treated so the ice that accumulates on our road and driveway will persist until the ambient temperatures are high enough to melt it away. That will not happen until Saturday. Until then, we will be home-bound. Not at all a hardship as long as we have electricity.

I will get some pictures of the ice and snow over the next couple days. I know many of my readers will not be impressed by those images, but for our area, this is a significant weather event.