The Ice Storm Melteth

Well we have heat and electricity again. Actually we are very blessed. I have a friend who is outside of town on the other side and she still doesn't have electricity; she hasn't had since Friday. This is better than the tornado though in that we could put food outside to keep it cold. The only thing you need to worry about is keeping the animals out of it. We have a opposum and a skunk that live here that probably eats as much cat food as the outside cat does.

I know cold is relative and that 10 degrees doesn't seem bad to people living in Maine or Canada, but around here when all you have to heat the house is a little, bitty fire place that is cold. We were all huddled in the living room under covers during the night. I stayed up most of the night stoking the fire. It was still cold. The first night wasn't too bad because the house still held a lot of heat. The next night was awful.

Added to that was that, with no electricity, there was no water. They finally have the water going but they say not to count on it staying on. We are under a boil order and no one can say how long it is going to last. The Red Cross has brought in bottled water for drinking which is good but habit has me going to the faucet. I actually went as far as taking a sip of it today before I remembered, now my youngest is worried that I'm going to get sick and die.

We have lost almost all our trees. A friend said that our place looks like a war zone, the sad part is that she's right. It's breaking my heart. My husband says the only bright spot is that he can finally cut down the Mammosa Tree. He has always hated it now there is nothing left but the trunk. The other trees he's not so happy about. We had a huge Oak tree that he particularly liked and he keeps telling me "If we cut the breaks off clean and tar them maybe we can save it." The sap is down so maybe he's right.

In closing, more cold and ice and snow are on the way. My husband has picked up a Kerosene heater and some Kerosene just in case. We have decided to definately put an insert in the fireplace to make it more efficient but that will have to wait until tax time. The next thing we are going to do after that is get a generator. We had thought about doing it after the tornado and decided that that was silly. After all how many disasters can happen in a year right? Boy were we wrong.