The Blizzard Of 2010

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The Big snow came to the SE coastal plains of the Atlantic Ocean all day yesterday starting at 0100. It stopped the world here. We're never really prepared for snow storms. Most of the time the snow we do get is considered fun for the kids and a minor aggravation for the adults. It snowed 6"-8" here, but Boston may get 30" of snow (76.2 cm) by tonight. Down here in the flatlands of N.C. that much snow might kill half the population.

The power stayed on until I fixed coffee and oatmeal, and then it went off and didn't come back on until around midnight. The temperature got down to around 14° (-10° C) last night, and I was very concerned about my water pipes freezing. All the neighbor's lights came back on and our lights didn't.

Good thing I noticed and told my brother to call in again (he knows somebody at the power company). They came and got the limbs and trees off the power lines where they run through the woods that broke under the weight of the snow.

Its 10:30 a.m., and we're still below freezing, and aren't expected to get much warmer for the whole day. This is a bit unusual because sometime we don't get enough snow in winter for the kids to make snowmen. That's kind of a gage for whether its really snowed or not. Even with six inches of snow it melted on the asphalt highways by dark last night.

This storm is probably about the only event that could interrupt my affair with the internet. Not having access for 24 hours was a big change. It demonstrated how dependent I am on it for what goes on outside of my house. Since the power was off there wasn't any television either, so most of that time I just sat and looked out the window.

My brother's greenhouse that is about 150 feet (45.72 M) south of my house is heated by gas, so there wasn't much chance I'd freeze, but the exhaust from the gas burning made it hard to stay inside it and breathe in that stuff for long. The tomatoes I grew out of the bottom of the plastic containers got moved over there before first frost, and there is about 6-10 fine looking tomatoes to contrast with the white snow.

My brother and his brother-in-law made a new work table inside the greenhouse for his wife to work on. They mounted gro-lites above the table about 5-10 feet (1.5-3.5 M) from my tomato plants and they seem to be getting some benefit from the lights that they keep on all night to help her wheat grass grow.

I've learned more about growing tomatoes in the past summer than I've ever known before. For one thing, I found out that tomatoes are self pollenating and nothing needs to be done to the cuttings than just to stick them in fertile soil. I even did some cuttings after the first frost and put them in dirt in the greenhouse and they lived.

I've been introduced to a prescription salve called Silverdene. The Wikipedia link is entirely too long to include. It is a topical cream that might help the open lesion on my foot. I've used it for two days. It hurts for a good long time after I apply it. Something has to help this thing heal up. I gotta read up on this stuff to make sure I'm not killing myself.

The big deal about getting it to heal up is the drugs I take for the rheumatoid arthritis lowers my immune system rather drastically, and infections can go wild and literally kill a person if they're not controlled. It's my opinion the VA Hospital would like that so they would have one less patient. The medicos only work there for the money.

The power going out must have killed my microwave oven. It's not that old. I was just beginning to get the hang of it. Maybe when the weather warms up I can take out on to the outside deck where I can see what's wrong and hopefully fix it. These things aren't cheap. All my creditors want their money before the holidays and times are a little tough now. Even though I'm writing it for the world to see, it doesn't matter. Nobody knows. '-)

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