thoughtful
This picture taken from the front porch is a line of trucks waiting for space on the loading dock at Imerys Minerals' diatomaceous-earth processing plant. This is unusual. Even though they rarely use all three lanes of their loading dock simultaneously, you almost never see more than two trucks waiting. It must be pretty boring for the drivers, who must stay in their trucks while waiting.
The lineup didn't end up reaching all the way back to our house (the vacant lot is next door; we'd buy it if we had the money), but it was close. I'm not sure exactly why they're having an issue, but I did find myself thinking that if they had that much demand, they should be shipping boxcar-loads from their private siding, which they still do have, just barely visible to the left of the building. Yes, of course the issue is that the different loads of DiaFil® are going to different destinations, and even if they weren't, most destinations aren't rail-served anymore, and unfortunately, loose-car railroading is notoriously slow and unreliable compared to shipping single truckloads from point to point.
With our household supply chain needs taken care of at least for a while, we find ourselves well-stocked with good food. This morning, I woke up to find a plate of fresh scones that Lisa made overnight before she went to bed. (She and I are keeping dramatically different hours, only seeing each other at the "edges" of our respective "days.") We'll eat pretty well for a while now. But I'm one of the fortunate ones, as I'm still fully employed and I worked from home already. As long as my company's customer has stuff that still need to be moved and that can still be moved, I should be okay. Fingers crossed.