At least, no tornado. Yet. Yesterday included one t-storm and two loud clunks of hail on the barn roof, while I was out there, with evidence of previous hail in the leaves and twigs on the ground…not a big hailstorm, but enough to make clear the frozen clods were up there. Last night we had off-and-on thunder, small spurts of rain; today there’s a bit more but most of it’s east of us, down on the low-lands.
It was still warm when I went to bed, so left the system set to deal with that, and woke to what feels like (to a Texan in April) COLD. Put the system off possible A/C and back to “heat”. It’s in the 40sF outside; the horses have sense enough to stand in the barn eating hay, rather than going out in the field to be rained on. (They *would* go out if there was enough lush grass, probably, but they’ve eaten much of it, and getting cold rain on your back and dribbling down your sides is not that fun right now.) I’ll need to go out and open another bale in a few minutes, when there’s a short break in the rain, which is heavier than it has been, right now. I’m still trying to get this laptop completely set up, while interrupted by OtherStuff, including all the typos I make on this keyboard.
The DEEDS OF YOUTH collection, now well into prep, has had its cover copy written (not by me; long experience has shown that writing cover copy is not my core talent!) and the cover designer is looking for the right shade of green. I found a decent enough, but not necessarily the *best,* green leather sample to use as background. Yesterday’s good news is still good: no batch concrete plant on the other side of the 80 acres, and I found the correct password for the Paksworld blog so I’m back into that one.
Thank you and here’s to you getting the next 80 acres.
Keyboard problems: can you use the old keyboard with the new laptop, or was it another laptop that died?
The old keyboard had the old-type connection for a desktop, apparently. The laptop is woefully deficient in ways to plug things like keyboards in. At the moment the “touchpad” instead of mouse is driving me batty because with browser it will suddenly, w/o warning and no apparent way to reverse it, enlarge whatever’s on the screen so I can’t see what *should* be there, only a small part of it. I don’t know what I did that did it, and I haven’t found a way to shrink it, or change the rate of change when it starts. And the touchpad cursor jumps around crazily at times. Doesn’t follow my finger motion even when I have the other forefinger on the tiny unmarked part of the touchpad that should lock it onto a scroll bar, for instance. The keyboard itself is flat, with minimal feedback, but it does show the letters on the keys.
I use a wireless mouse and keyboard with my laptop. I do too many things that I need more control than I can manage with just the touchpad. I’ve tutored students who don’t have any idea what to do with a mouse, but I’m old school.
So glad things are looking up. This corner of Vermont had an end of March rather like a tribe of polar bears. Two big storms with wet wet snow which was like concrete to shovel and high winds which knocked down enough trees to create two three day long black outs.
Also knocked down part of my cat fence and one escaped for 20 days, and the garden fence is also flat on the ground in places. It was two of the hundred year old apple trees that came down.
In the end “the cat came back” and I had thought she was a goner with a total of 70 inches of snow. She is now eating two cans of cat food a day and spending more time staying closer to me than ever before.
Good luck with your weather … and so glad you are back. When I got some place where there was power, I made a point of checking your website, and was disappointed when there was nothing new. Glad the book is moving towards publication. I spent time rereading Paladin’s Legacy by daylight and candle light during the long stretches without power. And blessing you for all the nuggets of information I find when re-reading. Take care!
Brrrr. And very sorry you lost some old apple trees. Glad your cat came home. I will eventually get everything replaced and back in service, except of course for the stuff lost to the dead hard drive. Hard drive recovery is never complete or easy, IME. Maybe I’ll write some new stories better the ones that were underway. Could happen.
My Texas hill country born and south central Oklahoma raised grandmother called the cold weather around the full moon after the Equinox the “Easter Spell”. It’s been cool here in western Arizona; we still haven’t turned the AC on. Thankful for every day we don’t because it helps the electricity bills, but to get through March without AC is very odd. According to the weather report, Summer will poke through Sunday; we’re supposed to hit 100. 100 on Easter is a bit early, but another storm is apparently going to come through next week. It says wind on Wednesday and the high is going to be back down to 75 on Thursday and Friday. Hope you stay safe. So glad you’re back, was concerned.
Glad to be back. Still working to get new system fully functional. We had weather that was bad for us to drive in, so I haven’t been back to pick up a hub withticularly additional USB ports and an SD card port (would really like two of them.) And Other Lifestuff has been snagging hours of time as well. It’s warmer tonight, but will it zoom back to hot? I’m thrilled to have the Deeds of Youth cover design done and dusted, but not thrilled that I can’t get it to copy/paste anywhere. And still don’t have my photo software loaded (concerns about this laptop being big & fast enough, and the publisher wanting me to use a browser I don’t have or particularly want to download it with.) But we think it’s really good and will work as part of the set I envision. Four of them…red, green, blue, brown. The new one is green. Blue will be the next one. Should be easy for readers to tell if they’ve got them all. When all of them are finally out…hope, hope, hope.
Glad you are back on line. I sympathize with your computer difficulties – hang tough and see if there are instructions on your pad – it should be possible to program it to your taste. As far as the covers for the books are concerned, I liked your Cold Welcome cover, but it is more about what is inside. Enjoy spring – finally occurring up here in New Hampshire.
Thanks for sharing your weather update! It’s always interesting to hear how different parts of the country are experiencing weather. I’m glad to hear there wasn’t a tornado, but the hail sounds intense. Do you have any tips for keeping your animals safe during storms like this?
Somme people bring their inside a barn if they have a barn. But on ranches, the large livestock (cattle, horses, goats, sheep) live outside all the time, with run-in sheds they can go into if they choose. My two horses will come into the barn if they get cold outside (windy and wet conditions) but will flee the noisy barn (hail on a steel roof is LOUD!! unless you’ve had (expensive) soundproofing & insulation sprayed up there. If you have a barn designed for tornado country (but realize that no structure is safe from the big ones) and your horses don’t freak out at being stalled inside (mine are not good about that) you can bring them in and confine them inside for the duration of the worst. Mine are just out there making up their own minds. They’re getting better about coming in on their own.