Mother Nature's Wrath

Mother Nature’s wrath was in evidence yesterday. The ice storm that pelted Roundtop was a big one—not the worst I’ve ever seen but certainly in the top five. I lost power in the late afternoon and despite promises from the electric company that it would be back up in 2 hours, I didn’t get it back for nearly 12 hours. I’ve come to the conclusion that their projected times for power to return have no basis in fact. I think they just give you a time that’s 2-3 hours from whenever you call.

The cabin stayed warm-ish as I closed the heavy curtains and didn’t open the door again except for a moment to take the dogs out. And when we were outside, I didn’t stay outside very long. I could hear limbs and branches falling with a crystalline shatter all around.

Just before I got up this morning, I heard what sounded like a heavy rain outside. Oh, great, I thought, more freezing rain. I got up to take the dogs out and dressed for rain. It was coming down hard. But then I looked up at the lightening sky and saw a star. That’s funny, I thought, a star out during a rainstorm. Then I saw more stars and realized the sky was nearly clear. That’s when I realized the "heavy rain" was the melting ice falling off the trees. That’s how much ice there is on the trees.

And Saturday, I will do it all over again—maybe. I was hoping for a snowstorm, but instead it may be a repeat of the ice storm. And in other news—forecasters locally report that the long range forecast for the winter is that after this blast of wintry weather, the long range forecast for January and February is for much warmer than usual weather. I’m reporting that now simply to see if they are right or wrong about that. Last year, December and January were warm but February brought a return to more normal weather. There’s nothing to do but wait and see. The last photo of my driveway was taken after I'd cleared all the limbs from it.