Laura and I were awakend this morning around 3:00 am by the loud roar of the wind as it howled through the trees surrounding our house. We sat up and listened as the wind pounded the house with small twigs it was trimming from the tops of our trees. The two wind chimes on our porch were in constant motion playing an eerie tune that was somewhere between Handel’s Water Music and an electronic jam session by Massive Attack. Suddenly Laura heard a crash outside and immediately dressed for a barn trip to check on the llamas. When she returned she gave me the bad news that a large limb had blown off of one of our trees and was blocking the road. It looked like I was going to have a couple of hours of chain saw work once daylight arrived–still a few hours away on one of the shortest days of the year. Since all of the llamas were safely tucked into the barn and I couldn’t work on the fallen tree until daylight we decided to go back to bed and finish our nights sleep. We had just gotten back to sleep when we were awakened by the sound of a chain saw and flashing red lights tracing a path across the wall of our bed room. Apparently the county sheriff and our local road crew had decided they could not wait until daylight for us to reopen the road. After about 30 minutes of constant chain saw work they had the road reopened and had saved us hours of work with our light weight chain saw. At least we had gotten to see our tax dollars at work. Our local government really does a great job taking care of our county roads We certainly owe them a nice cup of Java the next time we see them.