D'oh a deer

This is the same deer pictured in an earlier post. She was attracted to the grass in the paths that had been shoveled. She's been grazing here most of the afternoon.

Weekend Update

30 March 2007

It snowed heavily this morning, but when it stopped, the sun came out and the temperature climbed and snow melted. Bill got out the shovel and cleared some of it away so the sun would dry out the ground. We decided to try to bring my car in from town where it had spent the night. Late yesterday afternoon, a neighbor had plowed our road, so it might work. Of course it snowed all night and half the day. Since we wouldn't know until we tried we took the Jeep into town to retrive my car. My little Honda is a great road car as long as the road is paved and plowed. I figured that if we didn't bring it home soon, we'd be churning up mud instead of snow. I asked Bill if he wanted to tow me out of the mud or out of the snow. My car got stuck and the first turn, but I was pointed downhill, having missed the turn, so Bill gave me a push and I drove around to try it again. Again I got stuck, so this time after a push downhill I kept going back to town.
We've done it before and we'll do it again. We leave my car in town and Bill drives me down in the morning and I drive to work. After work he comes back to get me. This continues until the ground dries up.
Sometimes it's good to have two cars; a road car and an off-road car.

The March Wind Doth Blow. . .

. . . and we shall have snow, and what will the robin do then? Poor thing.

The winter storm warning was out (why they don't call it a spring storm warning is beyond me) so all morning at work people were quoting weather reports from the radio, news programs and www.weather.com . But mostly I ignored them. These are the people who are routinely absent and look for any excuse to miss work.

I was pleasantly surprised when the announcement came from the lady in the ceiling at 1:30 that the busses were waiting and we should dismiss our students. I shut down my computers, stacked my chairs, took one last visit to the restroom and headed out the door. Every one who saw me told me to drive carefully. They always do that, one flake of snow and it's, "Drive careful Ms. Taylor. Take it slow and careful." "It'll be fine," I said. "I'll be right behind the bus."

So I drove out of town thinking that the roads in town are always worse than the highway. They weren't. It wasn't that the roads were particularly icy. It was the combination of wind and snow that made it hard to see where the road was, come to think of it, maybe it was icy. I couldn't really see it. I made it to the top of the divide that separates where I live and where I work. Just at the top was the bus!!! It was turning around and heading back to Lame Deer and and the highway patrol guys told me I would have to do the same. The road was closed. So I turned and drove back on the nasty roads. At the intersection in Lame Deer they were turning traffic back BEFORE they made it to the top. Since they couldn't go east everyone was turning north on Hwy 39 towards Colstrip so I followed the crowd.

I ended up staying the night in Colstrip until the road opened agian this morning. I got to Ashland around 11:oo and stopped for mail. The post office lady said that our neighbor had stopped in and said that he "had no road to his house." I had suspected as much and had already called Bill. (I never used my cell phone except to call home, so glad I have one) He drove his Jeep to town and told me that he thought my car would be stuck if I tried to drive my car up the hill. So we just put all my stuff in his car and came home. It's been snowing off and on all day, but who cares? I'm home.

What Me Worry?

You Are 74% Non Conformist

You are a pretty serious non conformist. You live a life hardly anyone understands. And while some may call you a freak, you're happy with who you are.

Are You a Nonconformist?

Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month ! Celebrate poetry by clicking on the title of the post above and find the Magnetic Poetry page. Select one of the magnet sets and play around with the words a little and write your poem as a comment to this post.Here's mine.

I used the Shakespeare set. Can you tell?

Methinks perchance
Bawdy discontent shall
Wanton art speak. .


PS. Just write your favorite poem, whether you wrote it or not.

Read Across America

Our school library recently recieved a very generous gift of books from a school in New Jersey that was participating in the program called READ ACROSS AMERICA. The kids in New Jersey did a lot of fund raising and bought books for their library and then shared some with kids "Across America." The books were chosen with jr. high kids in mind and they were perfect choices for our students.

PS. I picked up the paperwork to declare as a candidate for the Ashland Public School Board. I just need 5 signatures. I can probably do that on a quick run to town for mail and groceries.

I AM A DUCK

I like to hang out in libraries and when I get a little "peckish" I like to nibble on some shamrocks.

Guess???

I recieved this in the mail as a gift from one of my brothers. A friend of his wife's makes them herself. Can you guess what it is? You might try clicking on the picture to get a larger image, but it's not the best picture so that might not help a lot.

In other news, I've been working on a federal grant at work. So far it adds up to $190,000.00. I'm not holding my breath or any thing, federal grants have a lot of federalise I don't speak, so I'm sure to forget to cross all the Ts and dot all the Is, but if I do get it , it will be almost as good as winning the lottery, and I'll get to spend it all in MY LIBRARY!

Pony Express?

I just realized that the email I sent to everyone to tell them about my new email program didn't get sent!! I get an error message that says something about needing authentication. I had to get a new email program because the Microsoft Outlook trial subscription ran out. I got one cheap called Eudora. I'll call the Eudora helpline and see what's up. But for now just know that I seem to be recieving email, I just don't seem to be able to send it, and I did try to keep in touch this weekend, mostly to tell you all what a pain it was to get the new email program.

I titled this post Pony Express because I was thinking that sometimes the convience of email and all things computer seems very frustrating. But now that I think of it, it would be a great name for an email program, wouldn't it? So I looked it up . . . and it is!

Bill's Deer

This deer has been a frequent visitor to our yard this winter. In fact it has been here so often that Bill says, "My deer is back." It does come closer to the house, but not today. This week has been colder than it has been, almost like a real winter. But the snow has stayed to a minimum so I've made it to work every day this week.