I Quit Winter!

It is %&#$^( Snowing Again! I woke up to a typical winter day. Went about my business to get ready for work. And, exactly at the moment that I inched open the backdoor to venture out to my garage and drive to work, it started falling. Hard. I had to walk across the road to put some outgoing mail into the mailbox and it was like crossing over Mt Hood. Gale force winds, sleet poking my eyes. And, then, the drive! My wonderful Iowa commute turned into a 45-minute white-knuckler. When does it STOP???!!! Get me out of this snow and the country! I want my neighborhood Starbucks and a snowplow driver on my paved street every hour! ARGHHHH!!!

A snowy holiday

I just had to take a moment to share with some of you the experiences of this, our second December in rural Iowa. For those of you not familiar with the ways of the Midwest, let me just say that yes, we get snow, but in the last several years, it just hasn't been that bad. I mean, we get snow, we shovel, we plow, we go to work and carry on in our usual ways. . .Of course, as some of you already know, this "usual ways" thing has not been the case for us since we moved to Iowa. I won't retell the story of our 7-day power outage last February, but I will say that this December has been a month of UNusual ways!
To start, we have had MAJOR snow every WEEKEND in December! To the point, where it's just safer to stay home. Out of the 4 snowy Saturdays, there was only 1 where venturing out was even an option. So, this past weekend, before Christmas, we got the now customary snow mini-blizzard, delivering 3-5" of snow. Accompanying the snow THIS time, instead of ice, were 40 mph winds. (The FIRST of the Saturday snows was actually 2" of pure ice, which has rendered our dirt road an ice rink. Which, is not nearly as romantic as the ice rink in Millenium Park) These are simple downright nasty winds for all you city dwellers. For us country mice, winds mean snowdrifts. (a whole new concept for me since I moved to Iowa) Snowdrifts mean STUCK! We had 3-5 FOOT drifts along our road on Sunday morning. And Monday morning. We received no mail, no newspaper and potentially, no Santa! The UPS Driver phoned us at 10:00am. Would we meet him at the grocery store to get our last packages because he's not venturing down our road? Well, if he can't venture, neither can we! ( now thinking we should get a snowmobile) (did I mention that we bought our house from people who moved to Wisconsin so that they could have more snow for snowmobiling??)

Around noon on Monday, Darin finally ventured out in his smallest of John Deere tractors to put his finger in the dike, or at least attempt to plow a path up the road. He was able to rescue the neighbor's 18-mo old grand-daughter whose parents' car was stuck another mile up the road, but was somewhat ineffectual at getting a path for our car to get out and deliver presents and go to church and do all the normal stuff that folks do on the Chistmas holiday. I watched from the window as his tractor-that-could attacked drifts twice as high as its roll bar, chipping away at Mt. Everest. However, after 3 hours into Darin's tractor adventure, a light appeared over the crest of the hill at the beginning of Museum Rd. What could it be? Rudoloph, you think? No, it was indeed the county snowplow slowly making its way along Museum Rd. Darin pedalled his tractor home as fast as he could and swooped into our driveway just ahead of the giant snow mover, at 3:08 pm.

It provided a wonderful one-way path, banked now by 8-foot snow mounds. We got to Christmas Eve church and to Grandma's and were relatively normal people on Christmas Day. hooray! So, for all of you who dream of country living, take my story to heart - from someone who no longer pines, but lives the country life. Please, thank your snowplow driver this New Year! And enjoy your drift-free, snow-free holiday! We'll build you a snowman. and an igloo. and make some snow angels. snow bunnies anyone?

Iowa Caucuses

This is my first time in Iowa during caucus season. It's been interesting to be here for many reasons. In years past, I've always taken interest in the Iowa caucus because of our connection here and wondered how Iowa could select one candidate over what seemed like an obvious other. This year, I still feel like part observer, part participant. Between work and the kids, I have not made it to any campaign events, but have field multitudes of calls from all the campaigns. We've even been lucky enough to have most of the democratic contenders come right through Mt Vernon. One reason why I think Iowa is a great state to be "first in the nation" is that it's an "approachable" state. I've always thought that Iowans that I have met are some of the most open-minded, accepting people I've met. After living here over a year, I haven't changed my mind. There's just this sort of culture that let's people be who they are and still fit in. As a result, Iowans tend to look at the facts. We don't get caught up in dazzle or idle chit-chat, we evaluate and consider and change our minds. The other thing that makes Iowa approachable is that you can cross the state in a few hours. Candidates makes stops in 3-5 cities in a day. And these are cities that are geographically apart, each with their own subculture and issues. Anyway, I hope Iowa keeps its "first" status. I do plan to caucus this year. I've done my research. And I hope that the next time around, I'll be able to meet more of the candidates and be less of an observer.