It's Magical Outside

The title words for this post are the words I woke up to this morning. It was insanely early in the morning, but Joe was right. Snow was everywhere, covering the ice that had coated everything yesterday. Magical. We don't get to see the landscape so transformed very often here in Kennesaw.

After Joe took our old coonhound out for a brief slide around in the yard (her back legs aren't very stable these days), we took our younger dog for a long, pre-dawn walk. Snowflakes were still falling, and no one else was out.

We've spent a couple of days at home since Georgia declared a state of emergency over the winter weather, and I've been contemplating the coming spring for much of that time. I've plotted the crop rotations for the year, put in my last seed order, and hovered over a flat of seeds so recently planted that only the lettuces are visible above ground. The tomatoes should appear in a few days, but the peppers and eggplants could be much slower.

I've also done a bit of small-farm research for a new farmer who came to the office on Tuesday, and I've been reading more about community gardens, permaculture, and agro-ecology. If it sounds like I've had a great couple of days, well, it's all true!

In the news, there was talk of widespread power outages, so we have kept the woodstove going. Yesterday we had a pot of crowder peas (harvested and shelled out late last summer) on that stove most of the day; today we have vegetable soup on the woodstove, and I've made bread. Power at our house has stayed on, but a transformer "blew" up the street, leaving some of our neighbors without electricity for a while. Luckily, repairs already seem to have been completed.

For me, it's been a pleasant  couple of days, complete with garden thinking-and-reading, phone calls from concerned relatives (in Oklahoma, Texas, and Louisiana), text updates from local friends, cozy moments with my pet bunnies, magical moments with Joe, and comfort-foods hot off the woodstove. I hope that other gardeners have also found ways to enjoy the break from their usual routine!

Crazy Icy Roads

This blog post is totally not garden-related, but - holy cow! -  we are having a time here in North Georgia. It all started yesterday at around 10 a.m., when the first flurry of snow started coming down, and instead of melting on the roads, it glazed them all with ice.

I left the office to run some errands on my lunch break, noticed how slick the roads already had become, then returned and started making calls to cancel my evening Seed Saving class (I've rescheduled for two nights). By then, local schools had all announced that they would be sending kids home two hours ahead of the usual schedule, and parents all headed home so kids wouldn't be left in empty houses.

 Just about that same time, county employees (of which I am one) were told that they could leave early if they needed to, but that they would have to use annual leave (vacation time!) to cover that absence. By 2 p.m., my office was down to three employees. I stayed until 4:15 p.m. (those vacation hours are precious), but I wanted to make at least part of the drive in daylight. It took an hour and a half to go the first mile. Some areas were covered up in cars that couldn't go anyplace, and navigating between them was a little bit hair-raising.

I saw an astounding number of pedestrians, which at first I thought was pretty cool, but then I figured out that most of those people were walking because they had abandoned their cars -- which were now blocking roads all over the place.

I am one of the lucky ones. My drive took a little less than five hours (it's a nine mile commute), and I only had trouble twice. The first time, the driver of a Marietta Schools bus helped me get my car moving over a slick patch. He had no passengers at that time, and based on all the reports I've heard of schools filled with stranded kids,  I am sure he needed to be somewhere else.

The second time, I was stuck on a hill that provided about as much traction as greased glass, and other cars began to go around mine. I had about a quart of dirt in a container in the back of the car (I am a gardener, after all), and I tossed a little behind and in front of my front wheels, and that gave me enough of a boost to continue up the icy hill.

Of course, this was the first time in a very long time that I accidentally had left my cell phone in the dining room when I headed for work in the morning. Phone-less, I had no way to let Joe know where I was or how I was doing.

When I finally got home, I could see that I had been constantly on his mind. Not only did he run out in his socks to give me a long, hard hug, but he also had shoveled out tracks on the driveway so I would have an easy stop (rather than a slide into the garage doors) at the end of my journey. Those tracks were like a big, non-icy welcome mat! He said he had been less than 15 minutes from getting into the Jeep to come look for me.

Two cleared tracks like a welcome mat, shoveled from our slippery driveway.

Other people who work in my office ran into a lot more trouble on the road. One who lives just another mile or so beyond me had a seven hour drive home; two got home at five this morning; one still wasn't home when I heard last at 10 a.m.; a couple others got home after midnight.

One of Joe's coworkers drove for nine hours, then had to leave his car and walk the last mile and a half. Others didn't make it more than a mile from work and walked away from their stranded vehicles to the nearby home of a friend, where they all still are. My next door neighbor just got home about an hour ago, around 1:00 p.m.

I had a call this morning, early, from my boss, with the message that county offices would be opening at noon today. By 10 a.m., though, the county website announced that county offices would remain closed for the entire day (good call). I have no idea what tomorrow will bring, the website doesn't say yet, but at two in the afternoon the road in front of my house is still providing some excellent sledding. I'm thinking that's not a good sign for any of us who might be asked to report to work in the morning.

I hope that all of the rest of my gardening friends are safe, warm, well-fed, and able to enjoy at least part of the craziness!

I've Been in Texas

Sorry for the lack of garden-posting, but I've been to Texas for a big family gathering. One special feature of this particular gathering was that ALL my brothers and sisters were able to be there, so we stood together - in birth-order - for a photo with Mom. Mom is on the far left, the oldest daughter is next, and so on; I'm between two of the boys (fourth person from the left, but the third of Mom's children).

Mom and all eight of her children. July 4, 2013.          PHOTO/Amy W.

There were lots of kids and a few grandkids (great grandkids for Mom), and we ate too much food, some of which probably wasn't all that healthful. However, it was all great!

I'll be back with our "regularly scheduled programming" in the next day or two. Hope everyone else had a great Independence Day!