Polar Vortex 2021
Snow, wind and bitter temperatures are never a good combination! Like most of the country, I have been keeping an eye on the weather.
I really don’t miss all that! Since a lot of my friends and family still live where they are getting that brutal winter weather, I am concerned about them. They are even getting an unusually heavy amount of snow in Cincinnati!
And while I am a few steps closer to getting the farmhouse in Illinois sold, I haven’t sold it yet and so I worry about it. I do have a great guy watching over it for me while I am in Florida. He has been checking on it daily during this particularly brutal cold snap.
I really hope the house and the road in front of it looks like this after the recent snowfall in Illinois:
I am pretty sure it is more likely to look like this:
The top picture was taken this past January and sent to me by the gentleman who farms my ground. The 2nd picture I think was taken in 2007. I have no idea why the trees don’t have any snow on them. I guess all the snow blew off and it part of what is covering the front steps!
My husband & I moved into the farmhouse where I grew up during the summer of 2001. We had a modular house built in the back yard for my parents. You can read more about that here.
One Very Vivid Snow Memory
As my parents got older and my Dad wasn’t able to keep our lane plowed, several people made sure we could always get out and if necessary, the ambulance could get in. 10 years ago, it started snowing on a Tuesday. It snowed off and on all week. On Saturday of that week, my Mom had a medical emergency during one of the snow events. Before I could get back outside to tell people where to park, one of the first responder’s vehicles got stuck in the lane. The paramedics called the Road Commissioner to get a snowplow to help plow us out and then lead us (the ambulance and then me following in my car) to the nearest major county road so that we could get my Mom to the hospital. My Mom always loved a parade, but I don’t think she enjoyed that one! Certainly not as much as she did this one!
I have lost count of the number of times I followed an ambulance carrying my Mom. Thankfully, there was only the one time we had to be led out by the snowplow.
The Ivesdale Fire Department, EMTs and the Sadorus Road Commissioner and his crew always took very good care of my parents. My Dad was a former Road Commissioner. The gentleman who farmed for my parents plowed us out a number of times.
And then there was the Blizzard of 1978
I was a senior in high school and my parents had gone to Florida for several weeks. They let me stay home by myself under the “supervision” of one of the neighbors. One morning I had the neighbor call the school and tell them I was “sick”. I wasn’t really sick, I just wanted to stay home and watch soap operas with my chihuahua, Pepi. It started snowing and blowing and by the end of the day it was really quite dreadful out. I was fine though. I was quite content all alone in the big farmhouse with my dog. My boyfriend at the time disagreed and came on the snowplow and took Pepi and me back to Bement to my grandmother’s house. I am sure I complained the whole way….
At school the next day, the principle gave me grief about my supposed illness and seemed to think it was funny that I might have been stuck out in the country. But I was a 17-year-old who thought she knew everything. I am kind of surprised I wasn’t a little more scared about being out there. I don’t think we even lost power. Maybe we did, maybe that’s why I was forced to ride in the snowplow clutching my little dog. I don’t think my boyfriend’s employer ever knew he came to get me. He didn’t work for the Sadorus township, he worked for a neighboring township and had taken the snowplow a tiny bit past the county line to pick me up.
Yes, we had school the next day. Back then, our school district hardly ever closed school due to the weather. They might have limited bus service, so the country kids didn’t have to go to school but since my Dad was a bus driver, I had to go with him. During one blizzard, every school in the state of Illinois was closed except for Bement and the University of Illinois. That made the news!
I hope everyone is staying safe and warm!
I remember taking the second winter picture of the farmhouse! I think I missed 2 days of work because I couldn’t get out of the driveway! Also the road in front of the house was blocked. It was a true “white out”