I'm BACK!!!!!

Hello friends.... finally, a blog!!!! I have a "thousand" names for this blog... "dumped on" "stupid cable company" "withdrawal symptoms" "missing my computer" "where is civilization" "where have I been????" Well, the story goes like this... more snow!!! We were "told".. mostly rain, switching over to snow, 5 or so inches expected..OK.. wet heavy snow to deal with.. what's new?? Sunday afternoon, we went and got a load of shavings, and sure enough, it began to rain. We hurried and got everything undercover. But the rain didn't last very long, and by supper time, it had turned to big heavy snow flakes mixed with sleet.

As we brought the "boys" in for the night, the sleet was giving way to snow. Looks like the "rain" stuff was going to stay on the "coast"...

The boys seemed anxious to get it... they always are when it's feeding time, but I did get the sense that they were happy to get into their stalls... did they know something was up.

Around 10:00 pm it was snowing with gusto and out went the lights.. I'm getting used to that now. Since we were heading to bed anyways and the woodstove had the house nice and warm, it didn't matter. It must have been about 4:00 am (Monday) when the power came back... good!!! I can have my coffee. The power stayed on just long enough for that... coffee, start of some laundry and out it went again.

Believe it or not power (for the moment) was the least of our concern.!!! We got dumped on!!! There was at least 16-18 inches of new snow. And since just the bottom layer of it had been wet, the top was nice and light which made some "amazing" snow drifts!!!! There had to be at least four feet in front of the barn!!!! No horses were going out until we got that cleaned up!!!!

These pictures really don't do it "justice".. everything was buried!!! Including the fence itself!!!and mind you, this is just the barn.. Ed still had the camp to clear out, and the road that brings us in... he was hours plowing, hauling, moving, lifting snow!!!!

Every time I hear that wonderful tractor fire up, I feel so blessed that we have it!!! I don't think we could move all this snow just with the plow... on the farm, it really needs to be moved.. not just pushed out of the way. On top of all of this, Ed really was not feeling that well, I think he had a touch of "the bug" that is flying around. Still, he managed to move a lot of snow!!!

Turning the horses out (finally) was quite interesting, Ed had made some paths for them with the tractor, but wasn't able to clean the fence lines entirely. (On top of not feel well, the tractor was doing it's best, but it had a hard time) The big boys were fine, even though the snow was belly high on them... but Mocha... she looked at the snow and I could honestly hear her say "You have got to be kidding"... she tried eating some of the snow, but if she thought she would just eat her way thru it... she must have decided differently!!! I don't know if it's funny or sad when the snow is higher than your horse!!!!!

After spending the better part of the day moving snow, we went back to the camp for a little breather and some lunch.. and then remembered that we were without power. We sat and chatted for a bit (the sun was out so the camp was bright and warm) and I did call the power company to see if there was an estimated time of when we would have lights again. I got a recording that listed almost 30 towns without power... we decided it might be best to bring the generator back. So, down to the farm, dig the generator out of the "electric shed"... haul it to the camp, and had it up and running before dark. We made a good choice, because the power did not come on until 10:00... but with the generator running, we were able to cook supper and at least watch a dvd on the TV.

We then noticed that even though we had power, there was no cable... which means no TV... no computer and even worse...no phone!!! Oh well, it was time for bed and we would "worry" about that the next day.

Tuesday morning we woke to the same, no cable. I called the cable company, and they assured us it "would be on sometime today"....OK.. I was a little anxious for "my computer"... but, one more day...not too bad. Well, the day went on and on...still nothing, I don't like the idea of no phone..the cells were working OK, but sometimes it depends on "where you are standing" as to whether they really work or not. AND of course, no blogging.......

This morning, I called the cable company again... I tried to stay calm, but I had decided I wasn't going to let "sometime today" be the answer. The gal I talked to began to say it, and I cut her off... "look I have heard that for the past two days...please tell me what is really going on here!!!!" I figured she must have dealt with a "thousand" angry folks and it's not her fault, so I didn't want to go there, but I did want a straight answer.She finally told me that, because we are so close to the New Hampshire boarder... our cable power is supplied by them... and they had a problem that wasn't going well... thus, we were without our cable... OK... now that is an answer I can accept... (she should have just said that before!!!) but, the bottom line was.. she had no idea when we could expect our cable back and we simply had to be patient.

I put my "extra time" to good use... and got all the cockers groomed.... as I was trimming up Hunter (the last dog on the table) the phone rang... it actually scared me!!!! (I near cut Hunter!!!).. so I quickly answered it ... a dog student... and couldn't wait to get off the phone and onto the computer!!!! So, that's it in a nut shell.... no blog to read, because no computer to use!!!!! I could hardly wait to get in tonight from dog class, so I could blog and bring you all up to date.

If anyone needs any snow, we are giving it away for free!!!! just let me know..............