Wow, that sucks. Not like here, where you can happily live without heat either (it went down to 40F a couple of times in Dec, but has been steadily above 60F). I hope there's assistance for you with that.
You're so lucky to live where you don't really have to worry about heat all that much. But, I consider myself incredibly lucky to live here too. So - I just have to handle it all as well as I can. It only took a quick check for me to determine that I'm not eligible. They look at "
household income". Since the two young folks here make very good money, I'm outta luck. I guess that they assume that if there are
three adults living in a home that the expenses would be shared. That is not the case at all. The kids only pay $100 board a month. Both County and State Assistance are set up the same way.
On the bright side: The propane company can't stop delivering gas to me even if I can't pay the bills in their entirety. I'm on file as having MS, which is a temperature-sensitive disease. I'll pay as much as I can until it's paid. There's nothing more that I can do. It's the same with electricity since air-conditioning is critical in the summer time.
As for light, Harbor Freight has those solar-powered lanterns. Not very bright, but better than total darkness. I sent a couple home to the Philippines with my mom (she's there again for the winter) for a couple of her friends that have no electricity. She gives them money, but that doesn't solve their problem of having to eat dinner in the dark - hopefully the lanterns will help with that, at least.
I'm not worried about light. I've got lanterns all over the place of various varieties. There's at least one in every room. I even have the old style hurricane lanterns with the glass globes that folks used to depend on indoors, and I have wicks and oil to keep 'em going. Yay! Another Harbor Freight lover!!
Dunno what I'd do without Harbor Freight.
It's snowing like crazy outside! WooHoo! Wanna see?
View attachment 300143
ya can't really see it snowing but it is.
Enjoy your snow.
And I certainly hope that you didn't/don't have all of the troubles that others (Atlanta in particular) are having from Winter Storm Leon.
Now I'm wondering about CatLady and Uncle and Wuzz ...
Yesterday, on the car radio, as I was driving home, I heard an interview with the figure skater, Jason Brown. I heard that his YouTube video had been viewed more than 3 million times! So of course, I had to go see what everyone else was so taken by. I found the video and watched it, and then I thought I'd share.
OhMyGosh!! That was absolutely fantastic figure skating!! Don't laugh at me, but I actually teared up at the end. I've always loved watching figure skating and can't believe this young man's amazing talent. We'll hear a lot more about him in the future, I'm sure.
Welcome back Rave. See my email for my disgust with your propane issues.
I know, and responding to your email is next on my agenda.
I never had lessons, but when I was a teenager, I ice skated fairly often. I had roller skated since I was a little kid, so when I tried ice skating, it was similar enough that I sort of knew how to do it from the start. I never got a lot better, though. There were a couple of local ponds that froze over, and we used to go there to skate. My favorite time was when we had an unusual cold spell, and the Wissahickon Creek froze, and we could skate a mile or 2 in a straight line. That was so neat!
Same here. We used to go to a huge local pond to skate. I was never very good at it though ...
Raven -
I cannot believe the cost of propane. Incredible. Definitely check into any services for people who cannot afford propane. My neighbor got a one time propane fill one year. Think of how much money that saved her and she would have had no heat or cooking all winter if she hadn't gotten that fill up.
Thanks Lizzie. See above response to Cindy. It just rankles me that they didn't fill my tank completely when they came out in August and propane was relatively cheap.
My lesson went well. Wiseguy made it down the hill no real problems. He was eyeballing the tires and the puddle. I let him stop a couple of times to look then encouraged him forwards. The breeching didn't seem to phase him. We trotted around the playa a bit and did some figure eights. I tried a couple of tight turns in place [pivot turns] which didn't go great but Wiseguy and I worked it out.
On the way back, Wiseguy was pretty good about the dogs in the area [behind fencing]. The neighbor, John, came out. John called us over and then gave Wiseguy hugs. He is quite the talker so I told him Wiseguy can't handle standing still for too long [which is true] and drove out his driveway and back onto the roadway.
Steve and I and Wiseguy trotted the last half mile to the house past several well known to Wiseguy barking dogs. Wiseguy did great. Steve doesn't think he has much to teach me about driving Wiseguy. He thinks we mostly have to keep getting out on the road and building Wiseguy's confidence.
Since we had some time left today, we took Nevada out to the round pen so he could see how Nevada is doing and we talked about Nevada. We both think Nevada has a lot of potential as a driving horse. So, for the next lesson, he will be working with Nevada in the round pen. He got an idea of what I meant by Nevada getting himself all worked up and running around the pen. Nevada will stop and come to you so I think this is a fixable deal.
At first Nevada was keeping a respectful distance from Steve as we leaned on the fence inside the pen and Nevada did circles. Then, Nevada started cutting closer on each round. I felt that was disrespectful so I went into the middle and made the horse turn several times. Then, I called Nevada over to me and told him he was a good boy.
I worked with Nevada on being respectful as we walked back.
Lesson over.
I need to measure Nevada's mouth size and remeasure his browband size and get the surcingle ordered!!!!
Oh WOW! That sounds as if it could hardly have gone better! And what wonderful news that you're already doing so well that he doesn't think that there's much more that he could teach you. What a great compliment to your existing abilities!!
Good night early this evening. To honor Celtic's snow fest, here's a snowy picture. Today, though, it was clear here, but we still have snow on the ground, and it must have snowed a little last night, because there's a skim on my car.
That's just such a cool photo. Gorgeous. Thanks!
