I did a number of things in the house, waiting for the glorious sun to soften the ice, and a little after twelve, started the tractor. I was dressed warmly, but the sunlight made everything easier. I scraped my way to the hay barn and then back, then repeated the process. The ice was still hard but on my third pass, I could see more dirt, a precious sight indeed. I knew tomorrow was going to be sunnier and even warmer so I was happier than I had been in a couple of months. When I finished, I knew I could get back up that evening, so when I drove out it wasn’t with a sense of worry about returning, but with a confidence I had lacked since mid-December.
Saturday was a delightful day, and I called Mike and found out he was coming over at three to move the hundred gallon tank. I did a couple of passes up to the hay barn and when Mike arrived, it didn’t take us long to get the tank down and hooked up. After Mike left, I got the refrigerator going in a couple of minutes and learned a trick to get the pilot to stay on in the heater. Now I had a safe road and enough gas for at least a month. I couldn’t want anything else.
On Sunday, I decided to stay off the tractor. I read some and graded papers, practiced my sax and washed my winter jacket, which had begun to look like a hobo’s hand-me-down. I put all the stuff I had taken out of my truck to deliver the hundred pound tank back in, and I was elated, particularly since it was supposed to rain on Monday and that would help clear more snow and ice.