Power

Through rain, through snow, through wind, through sleet----this trio passes through, always grabbing a bite or two, always sneaking, always racing off after I take their picture. 

Power.

Ours is on.  We have no horror stories to tell . . . . yet. 

We were not among the many "powerless" in our area.

And, since it's dark out there, we can still assume that we have no damage from those forceful, loud winds which pummeled the region overnight. 

My sisters were powerless for most of the night.  Theirs came back on about 3 a.m.

Their telephone rang about half an hour ago with welcome news.   

No school. 

That makes them happy because now they can see in the daylight if their place suffered any damage from the wind. 

Even though we never lost our power through the entire storm, I did spend about an hour in the dark at a PEO fundraiser last night. 

I see this morning that my daughter-in-law did the same at another fundraiser.  Debbie and her friends spent their time in the dark at the Hive in downtown at a benefit for the local food bank where Debbie now works. 

By the way, Debbie, if you're reading this, tell Alice I bought a turkey yesterday at Super 1 and told 'em to save it for the Food Bank.  

Alice says they need 900 turkeys to help out local families this year, so if you're reading this, you're local and have some extra cash, you can buy a bird at any grocery store, and the grocer will see that it gets to the food bank. 

Money was really flowing at the fundraiser I attended.  All those dollars for gift baskets, centerpieces and a variety of crafts  go toward scholarships for young women. 

At both fundraisers, there may not have been light BUT there definitely was power in the name of "people power," aimed at doing good for others feeling powerless or for young people striving to enlighten their minds. 

I have now been outside this morning to assess.  Five pieces of metal flew off the eaves on our shop. One board on the barnyard fence separated from its post.  

Lots of little limbs scattered around the yard and, on Bill's tour of the woods, he counted three tree tops broken off.    

We were fortunate. 

This morning I went out to a barn where two horses spent a comfortable night, seemingly unaffected by the storm.  Last night was their first night spent confined in their box stalls. That's where they'll stay overnight for the rest of the winter. 

That means I'll be back to the morning routine of feeding, cleaning stalls and putting out the food for each night's meal. It also means I'll be listening to the radio a lot more in the morning.  

I always like the change to the winter morning routine and, along with listening to music, I enjoy those thinking periods while cleaning barns.  

This morning I'll be thinking a lot about yesterday---where we had three weather patterns in 12 hours-----pretty snow, ugly slop and scary winds.  

I'll also think about stuff going on in the world where it seems like everything is SO extreme these days.

Whatever happened to middle-of-the-road common sense?  

I'm thinking that many self-appointed pundits out there are developing a new style of thinking, thanks to the constant input from other social media pundits and from 24-hour news which takes one topic in the news and beats it to death.  

As soon as a new topic comes along, it gets beat to death, and all those minds who were so judgmental about whatever yesterday's situation happened to be, immediately switch gears and start some new ranting or pontificating on the latest topic, calling upon their vast storehouse of knowledge. 

Often they forget, in their newest rant, that they might just be contradicting some of the other strong views espoused and clung to so passionately in the past. 

Only problem:  one wonders how, in these swiftly moving cycles of reactive discussion, how they have time to fill their minds with new and adequate knowledge to engage in such omniscience.  

I think about that a lot and wonder when or if we'll ever return to a society that takes time to learn about things in depth and to make sure of facts before sharing opinions.

Just sayin'!

I used that little sentence above because it seems to be the in-vogue two-word conclusion for whenever we can't think of a better way to simply shut up. 

At this point, on a day where the sun has returned, that's exactly what I'm going to do. Off to the barn to do my shoveling and my thinking. 

Happy Wednesday.   GO ZAGS!