Ox in the Mire

     I showed up to choir practice today and the other ward was going home. Turns out that the stake was just asking us to have 1 hour meetings - Sacrament and an update and testimony from the bishop.  It turns out that 1/3 of the stake still doesn't have power and our ward only got heat in the chapel.  We are also under high wind warning for tonight.  They urged us to go home and eat and then all meet to clean up all the debris.  All the chainsaws working so hard yesterday meant that there are now more projectiles sitting out on everyone's curb.  The Davis County land fill has opened up for the day and the National Guard has been called out to help with the clean-up so everyone is clearing and preparing in case the power goes off again.
     Most of the work in our neighborhood is done now although they are over there sticking plywood onto the Snyder's roof where he has a hole.  I hope that will hold up for him tonight.  The Davis County Sheriff's office had a short video of the debris flying around Farmington on their Facebook page.  It's only 6 seconds but gives an idea of all the junk that is out there. 
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=2125172143678

At least it wasn't like a hurricane with lots of water damage too.  And Br. Stettler was saying that in 1983 a wind blew down all the big metal power towers.  There were a lot of people without power for a long time on that one.  So all in all, not bad. They even fixed our furnace yesterday and now I'm going to charge my cellphone just in case...

I Just Want to Get Warm

     So Dad has decided to put the heat on hold until I get up.  He started on Wednesday but neglected to tell me so it wasn't until about 2:00 that I actually thought I better check on the heat because I was really bundled up and still cold - 60*.  I turned it on and warmed it up for Dad to come home to.
     The next day was the BIG WIND (more about that later) so the power went off a little after 7 and no heat for the rest of the day - 55* at 2:00.
     Today he left a message saying he had put it on hold.  Great.  Turn it on.  Furnace broken. 61* at 2:00.  The furnace repairman is here now to fix our 2 year old, expensive furnace so I am hoping for a better, warmer day tomorrow.  
     Actually maybe it is a good thing because as I was checking on it our water softener started regenerating.  (This usually happens in the middle of the night but it is 14 hours off because of the power outage.) All the sudden I was stepping in water.  Our main drain in the basement must be running slow.  I don't know how long it has been flooding when it regenerates.  I guess I will look on the power and furnace problems as a blessing letting us know we really need Roto-Rooter before we have a major mess.
     THE BIG WIND
     It started at about 2 am with it's whistling and bumpings.  Nothing we haven't experienced before.  When I got up around 7 there was an ominous klu-klunking on the roof.  That did not sound good.  I looked out the window but only saw shingles flying off of the Wilson's roof into our yard. Our barbecue was tipped over in the middle of the patio. The cover Missing in Action.  

The Guptahs lost the ones on each side of their driveway

     At 8 I went out to see if I could see the newspaper anywhere.  I found a D-News in the middle of the street but no Trib anywhere in sight.  (Since then I have picked up 3 Standard Examiners. I don't know why they got blown around so much.) There were several garbage bags of leaves blowing around and lots of miscellaneous debris.  There were also 4 trees blown down.
      I went out backed and checked on our roof.  Not too bad; a few shingles but we had that many sitting in our garage. I figured Bryan could handle it.

     But the wind just kept howling and howling.  2 hours later: rain gutter ripped off of McCleves, facing off of Eldredge, siding off Oliverson's and  7 trees down. Nichol's are missing lots of fence. The Snyder's roof is starting to look pretty bare. Ours is definitely worse than it was.

And the wind kept up. Pretty steadily.  We didn't get the 100mph but they were strong and sustained. They went on for so long I guess that is what made them bad.  All in all at least we only lost shingles (although since we need to repair the roof I was kind of hoping some of the ratty pine trees by us might blow down or at least lean so badly that we could get rid of them). And, Dad said that when he opened the garage to go to work the BBQ cover had blown to the exact opposite side of the house and was sitting in the vortex of the rosebushes where everything seems to gather.

     Anyway,  The power stayed off.  The house was cold.  When Bryan came home I made him leave with me and go out to eat at Mimi's where they had problems with his dinner so they didn't charge him which made him happy.  I got warm and recharged my phone so that made me happy.  We then spent the evening in the library until they kicked us out a little before 9.  We looked up the mountain and didn't see any lights on and were preparing for a quick dash to bed and trying to stay warm but on our way home power was restored.  The heat was on when we got home and we could even watch a little news and see what happened.  Yeah!