The Ice Storm Cometh and is With Us Still

Monday night I heard the tell-tale pings of sleet on the windows. By Tuesday morning, the world was covered in the first layer of ice. My husband who was scheduled to fly to California had the flight canceled.

In the night, phase two began....at least I think that was when it was. DH's flight was canceled again. My daughter opened the door to look out the storm door in time to see some limbs split off the neighbor's trees. Her comment on Facebook struck me as funny: "yeah, last time I opened the door a tree fell down, I've been inside ever since."

We don't have many mature trees here and fortunately many of the power lines are underground. Of course transmission lines have to be above ground somewhere and you could periodically hear booms which I assumed to be transformers.

I have to say that compared to the ice storm we suffered through in Connecticut in January 1998, this wasn't much. There, the limbs were snapping around the house. The neighborhood boomed with falling limb, one pierced our swimming pool liner. We were without power for 4 days. Getting a pre-mastectomy blood test was difficult because my already small and difficult veins were so cold that they couldn't bring them up easily. Thankfully, we had hooked up a generator a few months before the ice storm so we had limited power.

I despaired of getting good shots...but then this winter storm had no snow...just ice. I crept out the back door gingerly to see what I could get as I knew that a fall with my bone conditions might mean a real problem. I must admit I was afraid of sliding into the swimming pool.

Here's my little bonfire peach. You might not recognize the first picture as the view from my kitchen window I seem to post so much of.


Yesterday, I spent quite a bit of time scraping off my car. I had a chemo treatment today at 10:00 am and I wasn't going to miss it. The roof had 1" of ice on it and the doors were completely frozen shut. The driver's side door was iced over with 1/2" of ice, and the passenger's door wasn't much better. With a lot of work and the sun finally working over to the car, I finally got it cleaned off...even though the side view mirrors didn't get cleaned off until I was sitting in the Cancer Care Center parking lot preparing to leave. Kind of hard to clean bits off when the temperature is in the 20s. Thank goodness for south west Ohio's strong sun.

I was a little terrified when I stopped for lunch on the way home and I stepped out onto a parking lot covered with ice with a coat of water on top. I swear, having cancer makes me think like a little old lady! Here I was, grasping the car and toddling along as I gingerly placed my feet.

On the way home, I saw marvelous ice-scapes on the side of the road...I regretted I didn't have a passenger or a driver so I could take some shots. The sun just made it sparkle and we had hoar frost on it as well this morning plus a little dusting of sparkly dry snow.

Oh yeah...and my husband? His flight was rescheduled to today....he was to arrive an hour and a half before he was to return. Obviously, he rescheduled his flight to another time and paid the rescheduling fees.

My thoughts ran to Robert Frost through this whole thing...My thoughts went to Fire and Ice, primarily because of the beginning words:

"Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice."

The rest of the poem fits more with my concerns with the middle east:

From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
...I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Over at Laughing Girl Quilts, Lori has also posted a couple of pictures and another Frost poem, but one I think is perhaps more appropriate to this ice storm. Take a look.