I mentioned here about a week ago that Hell, here in Independence, KS
> had frozen over with the ice storms of last weekend. Now here we are,
> a full week later, ice still over everything in sight. Every day, the
> temperature goes up to a little above freezing -- maybe to 40 degrees
> when the sun is out, a wee bit of the ice drips loose and begins to
> slowly run down the street. Then darkness falls, the temperature goes
> back to somewhere between zero or minus one (Tuesday and Wednesday
> night) and it all freezes again. My house has been frozen solid with
> sheets of ice all over it for a week; the front door has been solidly
> locked in ice all week, and the only other way in/out (the back door)
> has been all I can use. It is under a sheltered, covered area which
> keeps the rain away, and consequently, all the ice from last weekend.
> But, there is a catch; isn't there always? Living as I do on the
> side of a hill with a very slight incline in the yard, I am confronted
> with _solid_ sheets of ice throughout the yard and the sidewalk out to
> the street. So, in effect, I cannot go out that way either, except to
> let the dog out to 'make his potty' in the back yard. The cats are
> all staying inside, and the dog is pretty quick about letting me know,
> getting out and coming back inside. _I have not been out of this house
> for several days now_, almost all activities in town have been
> cancelled all week anyway. With the damn gutter spout on the roof
> clogged up, naturally the rain all overflowed last weekend and ran
> all over my front porch and the stairs there, thus the front door
> is blocked with ice. And no one has been _in the house_ either; the
> meals-on-wheels service has been suspended all this week with the
> roads between here and Coffeyville (from whence comes the food wagon)
> totally iced over although the city and state -- its Tenth Street out
> to the city limits, then a state highway -- keep shoveling and
> scraping and salting, to no avail. The ice is so impacted it is quite
> difficult to work on.
> Given my limited ability to walk anyway, the city authorities have
> very strongly advised me to 'sit it out', not to DARE trying to walk
> (with or without my cane) _anywhere_. Someone did show up last
> Saturday afternoon with a huge box of groceries for me, compliments
> of the local Episcopal Church; a couple weeks worth of food at least.
> Medicare ordered a power wheel chair for me and it will be _so good_
> when/if it gets here; it is impossible to tip over on the ice, I
> am told, and I can use it for limited (very limited) trips around town
> once it arrives, but believe it or not, the highway going up to
> Kansas City (the supplier) is also mostly blocked with ice, so I am
> out of luck until the electric chair (which gets 25 miles on a single
> charge; so I can go all over town and back easily on one charge)
> arrives here. The city tried to comfort me on the phone yesterday:
> "if you need anything, Mr. Townson, just give us a call or the police,
> someone will come out to help you."
> We had hoped there might be one or two warm 'spring like' days in this
> past week so it would all melt in earnest. But instead, the local
> PBS radio station (KOSU out of Tulsa) interuppted their programs many
> times Friday afternoon to give a 'weather advisory': Three or four
> inches of *new snow* assured overnight Friday into Saturday. At least
> our electric/cable lines have stayed in place, meaning my furnace,
> microwave oven, refrigerator and such are all working. Last winter was
> relatively mild; this year, it is total hell.
> PAT
You had better put chains on it!!
The Only Good Spammer is a Dead one!! Have you hunted one down today? (c) 2007 I Kill Spammers, Inc. A Rot In Hell Co.
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Do you mean a chain (and lock) to prevent it from getting stolen or chains for the tires to allow it to get traction on the ice? Or both? PAT]