So it's not often we get hit with inches of ice up here in these parts. A week ago we got to experience the full brunt of an ice storm and were kept up all night as trees surrounding our house shattered and fell apart under the weight, convinced that our big silver maple was about to fall upon our bedroom. It was impressive how many trees and branches came down over night. Significant cleanup ensued. A lot more firewood!
Also our power went out. As did most of the power in our state--half a million homes. Shelters opened for people who lost their heat. And we cranked up our wood stove and fed it around the clock--for 5 days! That's a long time to be without power, as some can attest. In retrospect, it was a bit surreal, spending that long like we were winter camping. We went to bed and rose pretty close to when the sun did, making for short days and a lot of sleep. We played cribbage, Sudokued and perfected toasting bread on our wood stove. We dug out our hand-crank radio. And we got a Christmas tree (but didn't decorate it). And I think we all got a bit of cabin fever, perhaps Myrick most of all. But despite the toting buckets of water up from the creek to flush the toilets and depending on our wonderful neighbors for their generator-driven shower, the enforced break from work was appreciated; we couldn't have done much school planning if we'd tried. And it makes for a good story.
