winter weather

Well it has been the most interesting 48 hours.
Beginning on Thursday the 30th: The Washington area(as in City of-not State or DC) was hit by a nasty winter storm. Unusual for us in any manner of speaking but highly unusual as it was the very first of the season. On Wednesday, the 29th I had the A/C running in the car and the shop as it had gotten up to 73 degrees F and was quite warm.

That is the weather in the Mid-West always changing. I believe Mark Twain said,"If you don't like the weather wait 30 minutes and it will change." That is a poor paraphrase. Anyway, Thursday was a nasty day, starting out with a cold rain that switched back and forth from freezing rain and sleet. We had shut down the Artfull Hand by three O'Clock in the afternoon. Linda and I had wanted to get home before dark and no-one was nutz enough to come into the shop to buy any rubberstamps. All were just trying to make it home.

The snow didn't start until late Thursday night. By the time I awoke on Friday there was approximately 6 inches at my house. I was lucky, a friend who lives 20 or so miles to the West of me in Hermann, got closer to 12 inches.... Add to that several more inches of sleet and some ice and you have a little idea of what we are dealing with.

Friday, December first, I only ventured out of my house to try to clean my car. (See photo above). The rest of the day was spent watching all three Lord of the Rings movies - the extended versions-in order.

Saturday, I drove my husband's work truck and had to put it in 4-wheel drive just to get out of the driveway. (He had plowed our driveway with the tractor on Friday.) I got stuck in some of the frozen tractor ruts. The temperature had plunged to single digits over night so everything had frozen over. The good news is that we have Sunshine and warming temps. The shop is open once again. Included in the work force today is Jake- a Black Lab and Cappy the beagle. The fence door to their outside pen had frozen. I couldn't budge it. So they spent the night indoors and came to work with me. The first thing they did upon jumping out of the truck was to make a circuit around the building. I'm not sure what they were looking for. I had to track them through the snow. I was fearful that they had seen or smelled the neighborhood kitty and had chased him off. I called and called, neither of them came to me. One of the neighboring shop owners stuck her head out her door and reported that she had seen the dogs head back to my back door. Sure - enough there they were. So after a good scolding we all got the shop open and ready for business. I've been here over 2 hours and I'm still waiting!!!!