Fucking Rotten Day

Fucking rotten day. Had to go check on a cow who's about to have a calf, but couldn't find her after 45 minutes of searching (they go off and hide to give birth). I knew she was somewhere deep in the woods where it's swampy and I wasn't about to put on my hip boots in this heat and go tromping around amongst the chiggers and ticks to track her down. I hope she had her damn calf safely. Should've shut her up in the lot by the barn but I knew she'd be unhappy about it.

Then a big storm blew in, for which I was initially grateful, but we only got .25" of rain in the deal, all in less than 30 minutes, while the lightning struck all around (made my phones ring every time one hit close by, which was about 10 times), blew a big limb across the road to my house, washed out part of the road to my house (again). That amount of rain only delays the worsening of the drought. Settled the dust for about an hour and that's all.

And then the power went off. And it stayed off until 10 PM. I was cut off from the WWW. It was awful. The power was off only at our end of the road. I went up about five houses down the road and THEY had power. The farm is the end of the line. The people to the north and west of us had power because they're on Benton electricity instead of Little Rock. The people up on the highway had power. Just this little patch of folks out in the hinterlands were powerless. I put in underground utilities all over the farm but it doesn't save my from the exposed power lines further up the road.

The sky stayed black for the rest of the day even after it quit raining and I couldn't even see to read. Had to go sit in the car and read a book, until J made me get out and go to Home Depot and Wal-Mart, so at least I got those chores done.

But then it was really dark. I was trying to read the newspaper by candlelight and it's a wonder I didn't catch myself on fire. Finally I gave up on that and went swimming. At least there I could light a couple of torches and have a little light, although I had to use a flashlight to change into my bathing suit in the pool house.Finally I saw the gate lights come on across the pasture, so I knew I could go home.

Funny thing is, everybody got power back except Billingsley Lane, which is just J and my daughter Sarah. He was pissed -- still didn't have power at 11 PM. I wonder if they'll send somebody back out on overtime for just two customers?

So I pretty much lost the whole day. Except for getting my grocery shopping done at Wal-Mart and buying some new light fixtures for my house at Home Depot.