Sunday afternoon around 1:00pm, the storm hit. Snow, first. Then the freezing rain. We were lucky at home; no trees came down and we didn’t lose power. However, it was another story at work. The shelter lost power Sunday night. Monday, we spot-cleaned and left early thinking the power would come on.

Tuesday came with no power. I called our friends at Schweitzer and they managed to find us a generator, along with two carpenters and an electrician from Union Electric to come out and hook us up. With the generator, we had heat to the stray and adoptable dog areas, and a small space heater for the cats, but no water. We again spot cleaned in the morning, took a break, and then senior staff went back to the shelter to clean and let the dogs out in the afternoon. We put out an email to the board, requesting water to be delivered in the morning.

Wednesday (today) we still had no power at work. The board really came through and we had lots of water to clean. Staff members took ginormous bags of feces-encrusted and urine-soaked bedding to Maudie’s to wash it. They only got about 1/4 of what needs to be washed done and it cost us $33. We cleaned in the morning, and again came back in the afternoon for a second cleaning.

This evening, the power came back on at the shelter! Tomorrow will be a busy day of deep disinfecting of every single nasty surface, catching up on piles and piles of laundry and getting back to doing my actual job for the first time all week. I’m not accustomed to hard labor, and the last few days of yanking dogs around and hauling heavy water buckets has left me sore and exhausted.

The animals, too are ready to get back into their regular routines. It’s been difficult on them…off their schedules, cold and stinky. It’s no way to live!  I like this photo of the cats, taken 2/23. I put some seed blocks out the window, and watching the birds has kept them busy. Look at the way George is sitting, upright like a prairie dog!

Let’s hope the predicted “wintery mix” tomorrow isn’t bad, and that we don’t see that ice storm they are predicting for Monday night. Let’s bring on spring already!