Our poor State has been put through a rough time of it the past few days. On Friday it began raining and there were weather updates keeping us posted as to whether we would have ice. The rain was a steady drip, drip, drip for 48 hours and lucky for us it never materialized.

Every area in a twenty mile circle in all directions was hit and suffered the damages. Small towns were completely without power and the city of Springfield was 70% without. Ice was over 2 inches thick in much of the State. It was an impossible situation because as soon as crews could restore power, more limbs broke and fell, causing the lines to break once more. It was horribly cold, wet and miserable and I can’t imagine how those poor men could keep at it around the clock.

Once the power goes, the first thing you notice is the lack of heat, but almost as soon, the dark settles in and the world becomes very black. The plumbing in homes is subject to freezing after several days and the refrigeration is no longer keeping foods from spoiling. It is such a loss but the worst thing is the cold. For the elderly and the young it is especially cruel. Some of those people won’t have power for another week or maybe two.

We were very fortunate here. We did have one short period without power this fall but this most recent storm stopped within a few miles of us. My greatest concern was poor Napoleon since he is pretty much up against it when the weather turns this bad. I have been feeding him canned cat food morning and evening, along with his usual home-made bread. However, food can only do so much against a long night high up in a tree. We have tried to get him to come in our garage but have never been successful.

For the two days it rained and was so cold, he stayed on the neighbor’s porch rail. Their porch is roofed and so it gave him that much cover from the cold rain……but the frigid West wind blew his feathers so I don’t know how it could have been very comfortable. I’m thankful he is surviving. We have several more days predicted with the extreme temperatures and then he should be OK again. I surely hope so. We would all miss him like crazy if anything happened to him.

The outdoor cats have been staying in the garage much of the day. It’s been too cold, wet and miserable to come out for any reason. I wish I had a robot to walk Mandy on these cold days and especially when it’s raining. Rocky slept most of the three days. He was nauseated and the pills for that put him right to sleep….which is a better way to get through the times he doesn’t feel so good. Tomorrow we go for his next Chemo on this schedule so I’ll be writing when we are back home in the afternoon sometime.

I hope you are warm and well, so until tomorrow, I am……

Essentially Esther