For two days there was no work and Mark and I were getting cabin fever.  This morning when we called in they said we could come to work, but not till 8:30.  We went back to bed for a while.  It’s a good thing we’ve had all this rest for the last couple days!

This morning we could see that any puddles that still remained had ice on them.  What a difference a week can make!  A week ago today it was 98 degrees out!  We arrived at work at 8:30, checked in, and waited till 9:00 to start.

The first truck that came to our piler was a semi hauling a trailer.  He came in on my side which has a high ramp, and he couldn’t get his trailer up to dump without it hitting parts of the piler that stick out.  He had to back up and go to the other side.  So much for the start of the day…

As the morning wore on my fingers ached with the cold.  Mind you, I was wearing long johns, two shirts, two coats and my helmet over my jacket hood.  The only part of my skin that was exposed was my face.  I finally pulled my fingers out of the fingers of my gloves for a bit to warm them against the palms of my hands.  Snot and gritty dirt kept getting into my mouth.  One of the supervisors asked if I’d like to go back to my car to warm up and I took him up on it.

Mark and I ate lunch in the car and we had soup in a thermos.  That felt so good!

In the afternoon things began to warm up a bit, but there was still a chilly wind so I left all my stuff on.  My lips were getting chapped, I was tired, and I felt very grumpy.  During our afternoon break, Mark listened to me complain about everything and he cheered me up.

The afternoon seemed a little better after that, but when evening fell it got bitterly cold again.  Piler two had an accident.  A chain broke and fell and almost hit one of the workers.  That piler will probably be down for a while.  That means piler three and our piler (one) will be taking up the slack.  As it got dark we had trucks lined up waiting to go through our piler, and they couldn’t even use both sides because they were all semis with trailers.  It was 7:40 before we were finally able to punch out.  By then my face hurt from being so chapped.

I’m sure things will get better as I get used to this job.