Through the Dark and the Cold

I regret that no one has updated the blog for so long. We have some good excuses. I hope we will resume fairly regular updates now.

The day length does not change so greatly here.  But we do lose about an hour of daylight.  It was that hour of more or less free time that was spent on the computer.

Also, it got cold. I once wrote that winter never comes here. I really had no idea what I was talking about. For the past few months the temperature has been in the low 60's. Don't laugh!

Hurricane Richard

Hurricane Richard is approaching Belize. It seems likely to hit somewhat south of us. I am not sure how far south. If it hits near Belize City, you will likely hear of this on the news. There would probably be some significant destruction.

If the hurricane shifts its course to the north, it will hit us. We are North of Belize City, just south of the Mexican boarder. You probably would not hear of that on the news. If you hear of damage to the Mexican city of Chetumal, that would indicate that we have been hurt bad.

The latest information I have is that the storm is strengthening rapidly. It may be a category 2 hurricane by landfall.

Storm surge will not be a problem for us. But wind damage could be. It now seems certain that we will have winds of greater than 34 knots, likely that we will have winds greater than 50 knots, and possible that we will have winds of greater than 64 knots. We will almost certainly be damaged to some degree.

We use the cellular phone network to connect to the internet. If the cell towers are damaged, we may be unable to connect to the internet for a while.

I am having terrible problems with Yahoo mail. They have implemented something new and it makes it very hard to send emails. I will probably change to some other service, but not right now.

We are making what preparations we can to minimize damage. We will post an update as soon as possible after the storm.

If you have an interest in the effect of the storm on Belize in general the following link might be useful.

Nemo

A good link for storm tracking information is here.

NRL Monterey Marine Meteorology Division

But Wait There's More

Another Sheep gave birth.  This sheep is named Madchen, and she is about the same age as SCC.  She delivered one male lamb, during the night.  The birth was heralded by many humming mosquitoes.

Update on the Sheep

Someone asked in an email how the sheep were doing.  I like talking about sheep, especially our sheep.

We have one sheep that we call SCC.  It stands for sugar, chocolate and caramel.  These are her colors.  SCC is certainly our biggest ewe.  She is probably our biggest sheep.  We have been unable to weigh her in a long time because we use a bathroom scale, weigh ourselves, then weigh ourselves holding the sheep.  We have great difficulty lifting her, and her weight plus Johnny's weight much less mine are over the limit of the scale.  To give an idea of Johnny's strength, he can carry a 100 pound bag of corn from the car to the house with little trouble.  He might just be able to lift SCC.   But we don't really know.  SCC moves and is built like a tank.