January 112 it started raining

It started to rain the night of the 22nd. It showed that it was going to turn to snow on the 23rd at 0700. It kept raining and about 10:00 it turned to freezing rain. It kept raining and freezing and we lost power at 1500. It rained and froze some more and didn't really start snowing much until after dark. I had filled a couple buckets with water and had them in the tub to flush the pot, because I was pretty sure we would loose power. I had the Coleman stove dug out and the percolator coffee pot dug out. After we lost power the routine was trying to melt enough snow to have water to flush the pot and water the chickens. That was about a full time job. I got the car dug out and tried to start the pickup, but the engine was packed with snow and it would not go. I have the hood open and hoping the snow melts out and it will take off. It seems like I had it do that once before so I figure it will go once it dries out. It is 37 now so it may be melting a little. They said there were 300 power poles down with in 25 miles of Minot and it could be up to two weeks before everyone has power. So we are pretty lucky I guess. We were with out power 69 hours and 45 minutes. I am 22 miles west of Minot.
There are a lot of geese going over. Mostly Canada's and White Fronts with a few snows mixed in.
Looking out the window to the North

China rose bush

China rose a little later

Silver Maple, I can usually mow under limbs on the riding mover.

Pergola ices up.

Is it the squirrel weight or the ice and wind that bent this over?

Caragana smashed down from ice.

Don't complain! It's moisture! Water is life.

I don't recall what time I left your house that day but was White_Knuckle driving back to Minot
You folks that way could sure use a break.

Who was complaining. It was a weather update. We needed the moisture. The now was running about 45/100 moisture due to all the rain on it. I would guess I melted close to 50 gallons of it, so I have an idea what there was for water in it.

I've always liked that country up there, but glad I'm not there now!

Ice is bad. Our stuff down here ain't built to handle ice like that. A good skim coat of ice will have our pines coming apart and dropping limbs with the pecans not far behind.

Baby is aint over yet- more rain this weekend

They say if it storms on Easter weekend you will have seven week ends in a row with a storm. Rain is nothing, ice and 300 down power pole is not the best. I was scared I was going hove to dig out the generator to run the pump in the sump pump hole. It stayed dry so far.

That big system is hung up in the mid Atlantic for the next week and is back swirling across the gulf of Mexico and all that moist air is coming at us
Sat-Sunday you are in the center of the system again.

Sorry about that. Figure of speech.