Jan 12th Week in Review

Well we managed to survive the latest Iowa Winter cold snap. Temps dipped well below what we call "seasonal"(20's) to a dangerously cold -25 below. And add in the wicked northwest wind, our wind chills plummeted to 40 below. Some places in Iowa broke records with -47! Crazy! In weather like this I'm even more grateful we live inside the barn with the critters, so we don't have to go too far to do chores! The drifting was bad in some places around here, but not in others, so we were pretty lucky.

Mingo, IA's watertower froze over...

The word on Jim's brother, Michael, is that even though he has now come down with pneumonia, he is doing much better overall. The rather frustrating part is working through the Medical Insurance system to ensure he gets the help he needs to recuperate. Thanks so very much for all your prayers!

Jim will be heading back down to Oklahoma for work again. There's a new job down there he's overseeing. There putting in transmission power lines for wind-generators from western Oklahoma to Oklahoma City, about 120 miles. He said he'll take some pictures of what he does for another blog update.

Jim's brother, Captain Nicholas Turner, is becoming quite a celebrity in Iowa's Newspapers. His wife Kim posted one article on her blog: http://turnermountainwest.blogspot.com/2009/01/nick-local-celebrity.html (For those of us that have had just about enough of this cold weather, their blog is also a wonderful way to imagine yourself in a warmer place!) And here is yet another article! http://www.nonpareilonline.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20241723&BRD=2703&PAG=461&dept_id=555106&rfi=6 We're pretty darn proud of our Marine!