It's supposed to be warmer here!

We've hit a standstill in our working on the place. A week ago Southern Illinois was hit with one of the nastiest ice storms in history. I have NEVER seen ice like that. In Goreville it looked like a tornado had gone through, there were so many trees and branches down.

Of course with so many trees breaking from the ice pretty much everyone down here lost power. The first couple days we were doing OK, it would go off and then back on again. A couple times the temperature in the house would go into the low 50s but then the power would come back on. Luckily it tended to happen at night so we were plenty warm until it was time to get out from under the covers. Then on Thursday, when the bad weather was over and the ice started to melt, our power went out for good. It didn't come back on that time until Saturday night. When the temp in the house got into the 40s we decided it was time to bail. Jim and Kathy had finally got their power back but still didn't have water, but we decided to spend Friday night there. Of course in the middle of this Directv finally showed up to install the satellite. The power literally went off as the tech was pulling into the driveway. He went ahead and installed everything and just had to come back when the power came back on to activate it.

Then Ray started having trouble with a tooth and we had to find a dentist who would get him in. It meant a drive all the way to Metropolis but by then it was sunny (still cold, though). So he's been out of commission the past couple days, between the pain med and the antibiotic he's not feeling really great.

Hopefully we will be able to go back north soon to get the rest of our stuff. Pretty soon I'm just going to buy new garden tools to be able to start working outside!