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| A beautiful evening as the sun sets |
Upon arising Sunday morning, I was dismayed to find we had no internet. For the first 50 years of my life, I got along fine without all this connectedness. Now, if the internet is down, it brings me down with it. It’s not just that it’s down but that I have to DO something about it. Eventually we learned that all service from Teakean Butte was down – the provider’s problem.
“Check every half hour or so to see if it’s back,” said Mike.
“You
mean that I should quit checking every ten minutes,” I asked.
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| Evening light |
Anyway, when it comes to this remote farm, some things are just magic, and having more or less reliable internet and television are two of them. And as basic as it sounds, running water is another. Grandma Ina never had plumbing or electricity, and so those activities that involve water – and we all have those – were especially difficult in winter. Did she think it was difficult? Yes, I think she did, especially in winter. Winter was difficult on the farm – and still is. Managing the plumbing just brings different problems.
Ina, my fact-as-fiction grandmother, was with me during this stay at the farm. She was glad to see me and anxious to discuss plans for this year’s Christmas advent blog. (It’s coming right up, you know. Time is flying.) She suggests keeping it simple – daily posts focused mostly on Christmas past using quotes, cards, recipes, poems, etc. I agreed, and as usual, she leaves it to me to organize it as I like.
It was warmer at the farm this morning – just 32. Mike found a fix for the wall furnace yesterday, and it still worked this morning. It’s great to have a little quick heat in the dining room. And as I sat looking out the dining room window while sipping my hot chocolate, I watched as jets made trails in the eastern sky. I had never seen this activity before. Was it practice drills?
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| Ghost riders in the sky? |
Now it’s going to warm up and rain, so we’re back in town, satisfied that we accomplished quite a lot over the weekend. KW
5 comments:
Oh, these pictures are amazing! So beautiful--thanks for sharing them.
Those trails you see in the sky are most likely commercial jets flying at altitudes around 40,000 feet. Most military jets fly much lower when they are on training missions. Just enjoy them.
I'll take your word for it, Chuck. I wouldn't know. It's just that they appeared to be doing maneuvers -- flying in tandem, making sharp turns -- and they didn't appear to be moving on. They were still there as we left.
That's the way it is with contrails. The movement depends on the way the wind blows at that altitude. If is doesn't blow, they stay where they are, and if it blows, they blow away. The turns are due to the routing of each airline. Sometimes, they are put into a holding pattern to wait for their turn to land. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to their movements.
The weirdest contrail I ever saw was at the farm. A plane went over from west to east and a single contrail followed. The atmosphere was saturated, and the contrail grew and grew, until the entire sky was covered, and later, it began to rain.
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