It’s past time to do something about the storage shed, and I could kick myself for not taking care of this earlier when the weather was nice; I can be so stupid, wallowing in self-pity distracted me from details.  Now I have to shovel the deck of the 7” of snow before I can start bringing in all those buckets of long term storage.  I guess the only good part is instead of carrying one or two at a time, I can put four on the sled and get them from the shed to the deck, sliding thru the snow.  I would have to bring them in one at a time anyway, but it’s going to be slippery.

I moved the futon away from the wall, and made sure the carpet was rolled back too.  I’m really not sure how much is going to fit back there, but I don’t have any alternatives. 5 high? 11 long? That’s only 55 buckets… this isn’t going to work, I have over 200 buckets.  I need to re-think this.

I way over estimated the battery backup for the cell tower:  I lost internet and cell phone at 1:15 this afternoon.  Before it went out, I got an email from Kris in MN.  I hope she realizes how lucky she is that her town has a power plant!  Those towns continue to use their own power, but any excess must be routed to someone else’s emergency services, likely the Twin Cities for her town.  Her hospital, schools, library, water treatment plant and local TV & radio stations will continue to function.  Even though they have a bank, that won’t open because it uses computer internet and most of the home offices are shut down to transactions; and the gas stations aren’t getting any deliveries so once the gas is gone, those close down too.  Even the stores and bars will close once the supplies run out.  I’m thinking the library and movie theater are going to be very busy!  I wonder if she has a bike to get around town on.

My bike is in the barn, of course I can’t use it in the snow, but maybe I better lock that up anyway.  That one is easy, it’s a metal barn and I can padlock the doors.  Anyone with bolt-cutters could get in, but why make it easy?  I suppose I could put some of the buckets in the barn, and rig an alarm to let me know if anyone opens the doors.  More to think about.

I’m intentionally staying out of town.  The township offices are closed today anyway, but I will also avoid the church tomorrow too.  I’m in a weird mood, and not really fit company even for Tufts, who is hating this snow.  I need some physical activity and I’ve got to shovel the deck anyway, that’s where the grill and gennie are, I guess I will do that.

The deck is cleared off now, but I can still smell snow in the air and the clouds are getting darker and lower.  I might be in for a real blast.  I better bring in just a bit more wood, too.  My first burn pile is almost gone, and that’s good, I hate digging a path to it.

It started snowing about a half hour into my moving buckets.  Having half of them inside is definitely more proactive then leaving them all outside in a plastic shed!  There are now two rows under the bookshelves and behind the futon (which now sticks out into the room too much); two rows, five buckets high, ten buckets long, one hundred buckets.  I tried for a mix: wheat berries, rice, beans, sugar, salt, barley, plus a couple cans of coffee.  Since the shed is behind the house, no one could see what I was doing, even if there was traffic, which there wasn’t.  Moving the rest to the barn isn’t going to be as stealthy.  Oh, well