Winter storm

It stormed overnight. The low temperature on my thermometer was -1 F. And the wind blew all night and only died down mid afternoon today.

The temperature inside my house was 45.6 F this morning when I woke up. Strangely it did not feel cold to me. *shrug* Last night when I had the wood stove going it was 69 F at the 10 pm news and weather forecast. That is how much heat the wind "blew" out of my house overnight. At least my well did not freeze.

The wind blew so hard I had a small amount of snow in my house where the wind blew snow through the lower corner of both the front door and screen door.

Snow drifts were all over. Because my fruit tree & garden fence acted as a wind break my driveway was drifted over. I had to shovel it all out before I could drive uptown. The wind did *help* me as it took part of the snow as I tossed it to the side of the driveway. It took me an hour to clear the driveway and I was cold by the time I finished. My fingers tingled as they warmed up when I came inside.

All this wind and drifting is unusual here and I felt like I was back in North Dakota or southern Minnesota.

I got my exercise today shoveling out everything.

By afternoon the wind died down and the sun came out. Even though the temperature only reached 14 F the sun is stronger and surprisingly it started to melt snow in protected areas.

When I was uptown I visited Bill. I only saw him for 10 minutes before a therapist came to take him to a therapy session. Bill was sitting in a wheelchair in front of a table and with a pillow under one arm. He was out in the common area. The only people around were a few other very old ladies in wheelchairs. A few Brendan House staff were flitting about. Still no seat belt on Bill. Apparently it is against Montana law to "restrain" a patient even if it is for their own safety. Poor Bill. He looked so sad. He sat alone in the common area with no one to talk to and nothing to see. He still speaks Martian.