Connected!

It's amazing how cut off from the world you can feel when you have no phone service and no internet service. It was nice that we had cell phones so that we could still arrange pick-ups from band practices and ball games...mostly by text, though, because our cell phones tend to drop voice calls at the house.

Last Sunday we lost our phone and internet connection due, I think, to a storm. I called to report the problem. Usually, they give you a time-frame a day or 2 out. The date of completion I was given was 9 days away!! We actually got our service back in 5 days, but I suspect the fix is not a permanent one.

The phone box out by the road has a line coming out the bottom which is tie-wrapped to the utility pole about 18 inches behind it. That line runs straight up the pole, then turns right several feet below the rest of the lines. (it's the one that looks like a dashed line at the bottom of the right triangle formed by the pole and the guy wire.)

That line runs across the road to another utility pole and then disappears down the road at the corner. (it's the lowest white line you can see in the picture below.)

I'm sure it will be replaced by something more permanent sometime in the near future.

Other happenings at the homestead:

We picked up a hitchhiker from the church on Friday afternoon. I suppose he could have come from the school, though, because I did park under a small tree. We didn't notice him until it started sprinkling and I turned on the windshield wipers. At first El, who was riding in the front, thought it was a leaf caught on the wipers. They were set on a slow intermittent setting, so she could look a bit more closely. After 2 speedy trips across the glass, we determined that it was a tiny lizard. We feared the worst, but after turning off the wipers, we could tell that he was riding on top of the blade and wasn't pinned under it.

Can you imagine what it was like for this little guy, zipping across the windshield and back every time the wipers moved!! What a ride!

You can see him just above the dash, below the pin that attaches the blade to the wiper arm. He looks rather like a diagonal blur.

When we stopped to get the mail at the house, Em volunteered to help him off the car and into a safer place.
The last we saw of him, he was catching his breath on the mailbox post, reflecting on his adventure.