Back On Line, Digging Out & Catching Up

Remember my grumbling about the phone line for the computer not working? That was fixed roughly 3 days after my calling the phone company. Then...this past Monday I attempted to get on line, regardless of how I tried, which phone line I used I could not connect. To make a long story short, the phone company had technical problems on their end. A piece of equipment failed. We were without internet service for 5 days. Brutal, I tell you.
Like many in the midwest we had a winter storm come through. Thankfully my plea not for us to have an ice storm was answered. Folks on the Arkansas Missouri border were not so fortunate. From my understanding thousands may still be without power. My heart goes out to them. In 2007 we were without power for 14 days after a similiar storm came through.
Here we had 3 days of freezing drizzle, sleet (about an inch) then 6 to 7 inches of snow on top of the ice and sleet. The weather has began to improve, the mess is beginning to melt away. Today it is suppose to be in the 50's hoping this will allow the mile long drive and side roads to town to clear. No one has been in or out for a week.
Even though we lost satellite and internet service, I feel blessed we did not lose power.
The animals weathered the storm well. The only ones I worried for were the meat and dairy goats (short hair) though they stayed hunkered down in their shelters. The sheep and Angoras seemed to enjoy laying out in the snow. The LGD's loved playing in the drifts. I used the paths where they patrolled the farm as my walking trails out and about.
The house goats, (twins born in Jan) are doing wonderful. They have doubled their birth weight and eat like little piglets. They are finally sleeping for 6 hours at night, which means I can also
:-)
Being holed up in the house without TV or internet was actually rather productive, tax prep was complete and ready to go to our accountant in record time. I did a winter version of spring cleaning, worked on budgets and bills, planned the garden and caught up on some reading.
Now I have much on line reading to catch up on from the look of my blog list.
Hope all are doing well and staying warm!