Sunday, December 18, 2016 – Cold Night with Snow, Sunday Services Canceled, Two Weeks Supply, Deer

Cold, Cold, Cold overnight! The forecast was for an overnight low of minus 5 degrees but when we got up this morning it was all the way down to minus 9 degrees! Last night between 8 and 10pm we got about 3 inches of snow. By this morning it was clearing and windy. The wind-chill factor makes it feel like it is 25 degrees below zero!

It was still very early, 6:00am, when we got a text message from our District leader. We were informed, since it is so cold and there is too much snow on the roads that all Sunday services have been cancelled. Also, all of the historic sites will be closed all day and all District meetings this evening are cancelled.

It’s a shame everything had to be cancelled but it’s good because our little car would not have made it out of our driveway and up the hill to church with the ice and snow on the road. Three weeks ago at our Mission Training Meeting President Hall asked all Senior missionaries to purchase and keep on hand a two weeks supply of food, water and necessary supplies in case of bad weather. Well, here it is and Sis. Johnson and I are well prepared. 

In addition to the food Sis. Johnson purchased to stock up against bad weather, we also have a refrigerator full of food we had planned to serve at tonight’s District dinner at our house. Since the meeting and dinner are cancelled we will have even more food left than we planned for emergencies. We are well supplied.

Our resident herd of deer are still outside our front door in spite of the cold. Today we had 8 does and older fawns in our front yard. The first year fawns lost their spots a couple of months ago and they are so big now they are hard to tell from the does. 

And speaking of deer, I heard a report a couple of weeks ago that said the state of Illinois annual deer harvest is seven thousand head behind last year. The problem isn’t a shortage of deer; in fact the state is overrun with too many deer. What I found interesting was that last year’s deer harvest, for all year and all deer and all tags was 155,000 deer taken! I had no idea, that’s a lot of deer.