Glazed

What fell from the chalky Ozarkansas sky yesterday was solid and white, but it wasn’t snow. We got ice pellets, hard as pea-gravel and noisy on the roof of the bus. With temps in the 20s, nothing melted when it landed — it accumulated on the ground and other flat surfaces, particularly on parked vehicles like our truck and Jeep.

The consistency of this frozen precipitation was something of a bonus. Since it didn’t fall as a liquid, and because pretty much everything was colder than freezing, it didn’t coat trees and power lines. I haven’t heard of any widespread outages from this round, which ended around 9pm last night.

Which isn’t to say that we don’t have a mess on our hands, of course. Roads are, to say the least, sketchy. Schools and many businesses are closed. The local airport is shut down, unable to remove the thick layer of ice from its single runway — steady sunshine is the only cure, and we won’t see that ’til Friday morning.

It looks like we’ll get a few hours of freezing rain after noon today. The last threat in the forecast comes tomorrow night into Thursday. From there we get a warmup, with 50s on tap.

And some rain, next week.

The Mountain fared about the same as we did here in Harrison. Power stayed on through this first round, but traffic and commerce are pretty much frozen. Farms continue to do what farms do, no matter the weather. Beyond that, patience is in order.

Every now and then I catch myself thinking about what it might be like to be camped closer to our homesite. The feeling passes quickly, though — we’re wintering in the right place. The distance isn’t a hardship. It’s not even really an inconvenience, considering where we are in the build. Any cost savings aren’t of practical consequence, especially weighed against the advantages of staying in Harrison.

The weather is what the weather is. Our life is what our life is. One will pass and the other goes on.

As we saw last week, changing conditions on The Mountain brought out a little more activity. The windows provided by our trailcams seem to indicate that the wildlife is as restless as we are.

But here we hunker, all of us.

For now.

Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.

#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath

#LetsGoBrandon #FJB

(Today’s header image: The US Route 65 span over Cricket Creek, looking south around noon today, via ARDOT. Elevation at this spot is about 1,200 feet AMSL.)

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