Snow day!

On December 12, I was just running down the road and a FedEx Ground guy handed me a water out his window. Best surprise!!!

I was so delighted, and I snapped this picture as he drove away.

Today, on this super cold day, I was getting ready to go running outside, and an unfamiliar pickup truck drove into our driveway.  The guy in the passenger seat started up toward the door, and I opened it to meet him.

"Hi, is your farm open today?"  he asked.

I thought this was a charming question, because almost everything IS closed today.  Libraries, schools, state government - even the mail in Michigan was suspended today, because it was cold.  (This cracks me up.  Most of us walk just from our cars into buildings, so why were these things closed?  But we were definitely open, just like lots of other places.  I digress.)

"Yes," I said.  "What can I help you with?"

"Hey!" he said.  "You're the girl I gave the water to!"

I then noticed he was wearing a FedEx coat, and I recognized him from before.  I introduced myself, he said his name was Steve, and I thanked him for the water.  My boys had come on the porch to see who it was, and they met him, too.

He told me his FedEx truck was stuck on the road in the snow about a mile away, and he wondered if we had something that we could use to pull him out.  He'd gotten a ride from someone who had happened to drive by, and then they drove over to our farm to see if there was anyone around to help.  I called one of our team members who said he could do it.  Steve thanked me and went back to his stuck truck.

I started down the road on my run and before I even got a half a mile, the guy in the pickup truck came back, alone.  He told me that the road commission had happened by and was getting the FedEx truck out.  I cancelled the distress call. 

At the next mile, the FedEx truck flew past me, with Steve (we're on a first name basis now) smiling and waving. 

So we ARE open, but then the team went back to dealing with a flat tire, staying warm while working outside in the cold temperatures (it's -13 now), trying to keep the waterers from freezing up, and dealing with all the things that happen when it's cold outside.  Kris got ski goggles for the guys operating equipment.  Your face does get really cold in this wind. Update: It's 3:30 a.m., and Kris has not been to bed yet because he's working on a machine that won't work. Oh, the cold...

So - thanks to neighbors, thanks to our team members, and thanks to random FedEx guys for making our days bright.  It's so nice when we all work together.

On a side note, the kids have been off school all week.  We did the fun 'throw boiling water and watch it freeze' experiment in the cold.  It turned out great.  This is take two.  On take one I splashed some of it onto my foot and burnt it so bad it blistered.  Ridiculous mistake.  Where was Steve with that bottle of water then?!