Diaries

It was 25 degrees, sunny, and windy this morning. The trees were still coated with ice but the wind had dried out the ground and roads. I had a couple of things to do this morning so did not go to the gym until time to report for my shift.

As of this morning the county was down from about 3000 plus without power to a little over 1000. We had some folks come in to the gym to shower. There are still around 500 waiting to get the power turned on. The winds last night kept blowing ice either off the trees or the roof onto the deck scaring Colin. The first time it happened I sure a tree had fallen on the deck. I check the deck and it looked like someone had thrown a big glass ball on the deck that had broken into thousands of pieces. This morning the deck and natural areas had a very light dusting of snow. It’s warmed up to the low 40’s but the area along the tree line where all the limbs are down is still covered in ice and snow since it does not get any sunshine over there. Thankfully the limbs did not come down on the cow fence.

It’s been a messy day in Sparta. This morning it was pouring down rain/sleet/freezing rain with temperatures just below freezing. Every thing was covered in ice but the roads were fine. Steve, manager, called to let me know power had been up and down there and we would wait to open at noon. I was supposed to work 11 – 4. Temperatures finally made it above freezing this afternoon to 35 degrees. Steve decided to close at 5 to keep staff from having to drive home after dark, so I stayed to work until we closed. There is a lot of fallen debris in the roads all over the county.

The limbs in the pines along the side yard started breaking off this morning. I had this same thing in Winston with one in the back yard. They just cannot hold the weight of all the ice. It sounds like a gun going off when they break scaring Colin. I will have a mess to clean up this weekend but am so very thankful I had that black walnut tree taken down or I would have an even bigger mess.

Tonight is to be a low of 25 and windy. So far, I have not lost power here but there are a lot of outages all over the county. If the winds pick up with all this ice it could get really nasty by tomorrow morning.

Another cloudy, rainy day though a bit warmer. It was 45 this morning without a breeze. Low of 28 tonight. Weather advisory starting tomorrow afternoon.

I worked at the bookstore this morning followed by a couple of appointments in Sparta this afternoon.

It was 35, cloudy, and calm when I took off for the gym this morning. Fortunately the temperature right now is 37. We have a cold, steady rain that started falling not long after I got back home from the gym, that, with a few degrees colder could have been snow. The rain is to continue through tonight and into tomorrow. Colin will have a boring day inside today.