WIND

Wind
(orcc)
Around 0500hours, Dillon the retired drug dog had just had enough of this un necessary sleeping in. When I don’t respond to his first gentle nudge, he will give me a quite forceful “punch”, usually in the ribs.
That did it. I immediately put my hand out from under the comforter onto his head to forstall another sharp rap to the ribs.
The electricity was still off. It had went off during a storm last night about 2200hours. Only seven hours this time. We had listened on the scanner for awhile to determine if there was anything we needed to do, besides just wait for power to be restored.
For the second time this week I had found myself outside in the rain, plugging in the emergency generator and switching the circuit breakers.
In my house shoes and bib overhauls, no tee shirt.
Luckily we have no neighbors close enough to sustain permanent brain damage from that sight.
Power here in the Ouachitas is a fragile thing. We are blessed with large old forests, but in a storm those trees will take down power lines as they fall or lose limbs.
Since this happens with some regularity, Betty already had coffee on and oatmeal cooking on the stove. As I came in from starting the generator Betty just grinned and shook her head while I dried off with a towell. “The power crews will catch you in your underware someday !” she said.
While on her way to work, Betty calls in her progress on her cell phone.
“I am having to dodge trees in the road near Witherspoon Cemetary”.  ”The rock crusher crew is clearing the road just before Hatton, it was that very large old pine we had talked about”. “The usual rock slide didn’t happen in Hatton Gap”. “The Wickes first responders are clearing the Highway near the Lighthouse”.
“Ok, I am at work, see ya’ this afternoon”, she said, it was still a little bit before 0600 hours.
Yeh, that kind of stuff is why our daily drivers are 4X4’s.
0700 hours, it is light enough to determine that we have no storm damage. The wind has subsided. I am off today. It is time for another world famious Ouachita mountain Squirrel hunt !