Ice Mountain

The roads are not pleasant today in Leetonia. We are cabin bound until the 2-3 inches of ice melts. It looks like glass on the roads. Roads that tilt precariously toward the drop-off to the creek. Yesterday I bounced off a bridge during freezing rain and with more rain/wintery mix scheduled for today...I am not anxious to attempt another death defying trip. No one will come to our rescue here if we are hurt or injured. No one drives the roads until they are better which could be days, weeks or months. The rain is supposed to turn to snow...which will roughen up the ice and make it more navigatible. Only time will tell. I have so much work to do and no way to get to it without walking at least 1.5 mile in cleated boots. It is times like these being isolated from the plowed, salted roads is a burden that hardly seems worth bearing.

Hibernation

January is the time of year we hibernate. The two menopausal mountain girls living 7 miles from the nearest plowed road. Our dog Jack parks himself on the snowmobile and wears a humilating dog jacket given to him as a Christmas present. No self-respecting pit-bull would be caught dead wearing this and yet his owners blog him to the world how humilating.

Living with nature requires a different attitude one that flows with the weather. During summer its work, work, work 70+ hours a week, cutting firewood, doing construction, painting, plumbing, electrical whatever the seasonal people need done we can make money at. In the winter most of them leave and we welcome the slower pace of 4-5 hour days. Not going anywhere in a hurry when it can take 4 hours to go 6 miles...we stay home.

We live in a NO CELL PHONE AREA...20k dial up connection and are glad to have that. It wasn't until 2002 that our house even had a phone...ever. Not a life for everyone but one that makes us happy. Far from the city. A traffic jam is meeting one other person on the road or a slow porqupine. Well this is my first blog...so I am keeping it short...