Online, At Last!

I awoke early today, as I have been doing. But today was the first I'd seen a sunrise here! And it was appropriate, because my hopes were also rising: Today is the day we are to get Internet access at the shed!

Dallas and Nate had, at my request, left the quad at the shed for us when they were done with it the night before. (Sure enough, it had rained during the night, putting an end to their all-night work-a-thon.) Every morning and evening, I have been taking the quad or walking up the hill with my cell phone, where I had to turn on the generator if it weren't running already, wait for the satellite connection to stabilize, and then use my phone to send and receive texts, make calls, and so on.

I had to do that again this morning, of course. But, hopefully, not tonight!

Finally, in late morning, Ray arrived. Ray is the sattellite/battery/solar/Internet expert. In no time, he had set up and calibrated the satellite dish. He also presented us with a heavy-duty power inverter and two deep-cycle batteries he said he'd charged for about six hours. Until we get a charger for the batteries, though, we need to minimize inverter use, and rely on our generator.

Shortly afterward, my daughter Jenny came down on the quad with her youngest, Dominic. Dom is such a joy! He loves to pretend he's driving the quad.

Jenny had come down to get water from the tank. This tank is on our neighbor, Chris's, property but he's given us access to it (since the well that fills it belongs to us all).

After filling the tanks, Dominic got permission to rinse the mud off the quad's tires, and then off his mommy's feet.

And, as you can see, there's still mud to spare, despite getting some sunshine.

But now we don't have to worry so much about the mud, because we have fewer reasons to go up the hill at all: Especially, we can text and call our loved ones, despite our being hunkered down in as remote a location as anyone is likely to manage during this crisis.

However, tonight that will not include me. Jenny's had an idea that will improve our situation, but it requires me to spend the night with her in her rental…without Keith. (Jenny is not allowed pets, and we can't leave the dogs on-property all night. Fortunately, Keith has no problem with being left here with the dogs. "Remember, I was at home alone in Mesa with them, and without them, after they were shipped."

And so, I will be sleeping in a conventional bed and taking a hot shower tonight…but my husband will not.

And we're both okay with that!