Winter forms our character and brings out our best. ~Tim Allen
We’re having what the weather forecasters like to call a winter weather advisory day with freezing rain falling out there. Ice is not nice when it falls like this and coats trees and power lines. We do love our electricity to keep humming into our houses and that takes those power lines. We haven’t had an ice storm for a while. The last bad one here in Kentucky was in 2009. It was extra bad for me that year because that was when my mother was starting down the dementia road. She was still okay in her own house at that time, but when she lost power there and didn’t have any way to keep warm, she had to come stay with me for a few days. That made her very out of place and worried. We lost power too but we had a woodstove back then and so could not only keep warm but could cook a pot of soup beans and have hot water for tea.
People compared stories then about huddling together under blankets to keep warm when their furnaces stopped working. Even if they had gas furnaces, the electric fans that circulated the heat didn’t work.
A worse ice storm in 2003 knocked out electricity for us for over a week. Again, we did have the woodstove but it’s amazing how many things you think about doing that you can’t do without electricity. By then, I was writing all my books on my computer. No power. No computer. We did still have the landline telephone so we didn’t have to worry about power for that and the water pipes didn’t freeze so we had water. Not hot water, but water. We had flashlights and candles and during the day, light to read by. Books don’t take power other than your eye power and hand power to turn the pages. So it was a great time to catch up on reading. For sure, we weren’t watching television. Of course, pens and pencils still worked too. I could have gotten some words written that way. I’m sure I tried.
Even though ice storms are dangerous and not to be wished on anyone, ice can be beautiful too. The pictures I’m sharing were from 2015 so not during an ice storm, but a time when we had a little ice to decorate the cliffsides. I was expecting the icicles along the cliff, but I was surprised by the ice formations on the trees branches and weeds that looked something like ice birds. I was thrilled to have the chance to see the ice and to take pictures. And no, I didn’t slide down the hill although I’m sure I might have slipped a few times trying to get the best pictures.
One more picture. What do you think this one looks like?
I’m hoping this ice storm we’re having won’t be as bad as those two I remember.
Do you remember any ice storms? If you lost power, what did you do until the electricity came back on?