One of the things I worry about when writing my journal is that I become too repetitive. I remember a time, years ago, when I decided that I would stop writing about cats. At the time I was trying to include a photograph with each journal entry and our cats were so photogenic that I often had new photographs of them. They also were entertaining to me, so I always had a few cat stories to tell. But I didn’t want my journal to be solely about the antics of a cat, so I disciplined myself to address other topics. When I went back to edit organize my journal archives, I discovered that I had not written that much about cats. It was mostly my perception and quite a bit away from the reality. During that time I was also traveling quite a bit and I would write an essay about returning home for every trip. Looking back at my early journal entries, the topic of home was one that is far more common than cats.

These days, I seem to be writing about the weather a lot. I remember a teacher who once said to me, “I’m getting older. I don’t have time left to waste talking about the weather.” While I appreciate his focus on the topics that mattered most to him, I later learned to talk about the weather during our seven year term as pastors in rural North Dakota. Nearly every day farmers would gather at the local cafe and the topic was always the weather. It seemed to me that the weather was always unusual - different than typical and different from what the farmers wanted. I quickly learned that if one was to serve the people of my parish, one had to become comfortable talking about the weather. After all, the entire life of a farm and ranch family hinges on the weather. They live so closely to the cycles of nature, that weather is an important part of their lives. For them it is not trivia.

So, at the risk of becoming too repetitious and perhaps boring, here is another journal entry about the weather.

Our weather remains cold. The high yesterday was only 15 degrees. The wind has been blowing 15 to 20 mph for several days. We had about two feet of light powder snow on the ground that fell Monday and Tuesday, but the snow has settled and the wind has rearranged it several times. There are drifts that are three or four feet deep, but there are also bare spots where the wind has blown the snow away. Today will be the third day of bitter cold, though the weather is forecast to start warming today and it could be above freezing by tomorrow. By Christmas Eve, our temperatures should be in the mid forties with rain quickly melting the snow.

We have dealt with the weather by staying home. We have plenty of supplies in the house, and we can do a lot of our work remotely over the Internet, so it seemed best for us not to get in the way of those who had to get out and about. It is pretty easy to break cabin fever during a blizzard by shoveling snow. Yesterday as I was shoveling the snow that had drifted back into the driveway overnight, I noticed that I was hot and sweating despite the cold temperatures outside. I have lots of warm winter clothing and we have been able to get out for walks every day, though we’ve been walking a shorter loop due to the biting wind.

By the third day of a blizzard, I’m usually ready to get a bit farther from home, however. I plan to head over to the farm this morning to help with chores. There will be more shoveling that needs to be done over there and I can use my pickup to pack down the snow in the driveway to make it easier for cars to come and go. For most of my life, I have have looked at three days as an important benchmark. I’ve often heard the phrase, “the first seventy-two are on you.” It means that in case of an emergency, individuals should have essential supplies such as food, water, and medicine, enough to last for seventy-two hours because rescue might be delayed. When heading out to travel in winter conditions in South Dakota, we would carry what we thought were enough survival supplies for 72 hours. I broke that rule a couple of times, and once we spent the night in our pickup and exhausted our food supply in one night. No harm came and we were happy and healthy when friends came to help us tow out our broken-down pickup the next day, but I didn’t make that mistake again. I have a pack with essential supplies, including freeze dried food and a small cookstove ready to go. I’ll toss it in the pickup today even though I’m not going farther than I can walk.

This storm, however, is becoming much more severe as it blows across the country. The temperatures are much colder at points east of here. Sub-zero temperatures are a serious matter. Frostbite can cause permanent damage and leave scars within very short amounts of exposure. Having essential survival supplies in a home for seventy-two hours means needing a supplemental heat source such as a wood stove or a backup generator. We have had no disruption of electricity or Internet during this storm so far. Although most of the time our primary heat source is an electric heat pump, our backup gas furnace has been running a lot during these cold days. Our emergency propane heater is at work at the farm, keeping the water flowing for the cows during the coldest days.

I’ve learned the term “bomb cyclone” in recent years and this storm is supposed to meat the criteria for such an event as it reaches the great lakes region. During such an event the barometric pressure can drop as much or more than during a hurricane. Forecasters say this storm will become a bomb cyclone and are calling this a “once in a generation” storm.

I knew it was serious when I saw the name they have given to this storm: Elliot. Winter storm Elliot. Elliot is not to be messed with. I know. I have an eleven-year-old grandson named Elliot. Naming the storm after him seems quite appropriate.