Life in West Virginia: FROZEN FINGERS HAVE PREVENTED ME FROM

Sunday, February 01, 2009

FROZEN FINGERS HAVE PREVENTED ME FROM

posting in the past several weeks. If any of you have paid much attention, the area in which West Virginia is located has been hit with winter storms. They consist of ice, followed by snow or vice versa and then cold temperatures. They also seem to hit on Sunday or Monday, each week for the past three weeks. My mother has only made it out of her driveway two times in the past three weeks, although don't quote me on that, but she does drive a Cadillac and well, the road that she lives on is left completely untreated.

It makes for beautiful scenery but it has damaged trees and power lines in the area. Our immediate area was lucky, power outages were relatively short compared to other areas of the state and Mom nor Kim lost power other than for just a few for minutes.

The kids here in Wood County didn't got to school all week long this past week and have missed several days, although, since I don't have one in school any longer, I don't really keep track. We are now only making it up his driveway after he and Ben went on Thursday (4 miles on a 4 wheeler because they hadn't treated Lee Creek or the road up to Mom's still . . . the storm started on Sunday) and got Dad's Dodge and brought it back here. Kim has a Taurus and we had been parking half-way down his driveway, where his trailer sits and riding Ben's 4-wheeler back and forth down to Rt. 21 where his driveway comes out. This was after he could only make it this far up the the driveway, which is the slope with only about a 20% grade, it hits 40% at the top and turns.

We get the truck here and well, the 4-wheel drive won't work. So, Kim being the handy guy he is does the basics,ve shaft is turning, so unfreeze hubs with torpedo heater. We drove it to my appt on Friday, still wouldn't go into 4 wheel drive. So, he parked it down at his trailer (where he lived until he had to move in here to take care of his Dad and Granddad).
Kim is working on it, Mom needs groceries, doesn't want to risk driving the Blazer off the hill with it being so icy, leaving Punkin behind. I had crying everyday, I haven't seen Punkin since Sunday, when I dropped her off to go to Walmart and ended up not going because the snow started pouring and Rt 21 was covered by the time I had dropped her off to go. (the storm wasn't supposed to hit until Tuesday afternoon, which the ice storm didn't, but no one said anything about 3 inches of snow Sunday night into Monday morning). Mom keeps calling, we are making plans about groceries and Rockport store can't cash her check at 2pm because they only have one $20 bill and she keeps adding to the list. IGA will take Mom's check from me, Walmart probably won't. Rockport will cash a check for me if the have it, but the don't. If we can't get it into 4-wheel drive, I have to get to IGA and just pay an outrageous amount and get back before 4:30 so Mom can bring Punkin in the Blazer and we take her back with us and I keep her over her for a while.

About the time Mom and I are getting nervous, I hear the truck, know its up top of the driveway, look out the windows, running in my bra and jeans and I looked out one door and see Kim but he can't see me because he's at the other end of the laundry room/mud room/wood room/coat room/tool room and I ran and opened the door and he said "Baby, we gots us four wheel drive" and I called Mom right back and said we have four wheel drive.

After that, things weren't as rushed; the store had money to cash a check for $100, which was good because it was $89.60; although, I bought myself Ben & Jerry's Choclate Chip Dough Ice Cream, Punkin some paint brushes , little wooden painted flowers and dragon flies to add to the ones already around her toy storage area at Kim's and a small can of walnut wood stain for me. We got Mom's stuff, Kim's stuff and then had to come to Kim's because a breaker tripped and his Granddad only had two lights on and the wood furnace was off. There is however, another wood stove in the back room where he sits during the day, so he wasn't going to get cold anytime soon, he just couldn't see.

We got to Mom's, Punkin was crying to go see the puppies and I was trying to grab some stuff, print some things off, get it all packed up, get her car seat in, the boys put it in wrong, had to move it, shes is crying, had to go back into garage, grab quilt and something else I don't recall and then take the horse feed we picked up for Mom over to the barn at my house.

The Christmas tree that Dad bought for Joey and me for our first Christmas in our new house, the last one we spent with him and that he planted for us, (its supposed to bring you good luck to have a live tree and then plant it) suffered damage from the ice.

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btw, Anita, if you are reading this, I got that from a website you gave me about superstitions and folklore and other stuff, it might have been snopes, but i am not sure. i also got leaving mistletoe up year round from that sight.

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Since I wasn't able to make it to my house for 5 days when I got there the first thing I did was check it and a large branch had broken off about 1/2 way up and the top is in danger of breaking. We are expecting a high of near 48 today, so I am going to get up there to shake as much off as I can to try to avoid as much damage as possible and save it.

€€€€€€€ Reminicing . . . .

We had an ice storm the year that Michael Waltrip won the rain-shortened Daytona 500, I think it was 2003 and the tree was smaller then, but it was almost doubled over. Joey and I were shaking it off and my super awesome neighbor, Randy Curfman, was driving by and stopped and helped us finished getting the ice off the tree. You gotta love West Virginia, even if its just for that fact that some of the best people on that walk the earth live right in my three back yards. I do have three houses I live in at various times of the year, you know. Or, if you didn't you know now.

Look for a blog later tonight or tomorrow that will piss of the carbon footprint people and the TREE HUGGERS . . . it will also include photos . . .