Richard spoke south of Wheeling Monday night and south of Morgantown last night to good crowds (again!). Today we drive over a big mountain (and in and out of Maryland) which might have some snow on it to get to our spot tonight in Keyser, WV. There’s a dusting of snow on the ground here, and they say the mountain pass gets a lot more!
The big concern for us is what conditions our homes will be in when we return to the ice ravaged SW Missouri. We know the power lines feeding to Richard’s house and several others are down in Richard’s pasture. We also know the line from the pole to Richard’s house is down. Regarding my house in town, it’s without electricity, but the kids said, so far, there’s no major roof etc. damage. They have the water running and the crawl space all tightened up trying to keep the pipes from freezing. It turned VERY cold last night, however, so who knows whether that will be enough to keep the cold from doing it’s damage. Maybe they got power yesterday??? I can hope! At least the COLD weather is keeping our freezer full of meat (without power) from warming much. We are hopeful it will be ok until we can get back to it.
Richard and I are making a list of items to buy in Illinois before we get into the “ice zone.” We will fill the ice chest with dry ice, buy white gas, batteries, etc. and be all set to live without power as long as necessary. At least Richard has a wonderful wood stove, so heat isn’t a problem. He also has a lot of camping items such as a camp stove and lanterns which will be equally handy. Both of us have lived without running water so know how to deal with that. And, he has a nice stream close to carry water from for the washing and toilet. It’s really a good situation.
So, we will move onto the next town and wonderful group of people to talk to about stockmanship!
