Holy Crap! Where's the De-Icer?

Sunday, late in the day, hubby and I chugged up the 401 from Detroit airport to home after a sunny two weeks in California and Arizona. The road was bare and we made good time, arriving here about 8:45 p.m. Tired and glad of our own bed, we turned the lights out early, beginning a beautiful blissful sleep until about 8:00 the next morning. We couldn't believe we slept so long! Looking out the window I saw an icy panorama and was glad we had made it home on good roads. Here is the view from my office window upstairs. Note the icy tree.

In the midst of getting breakfast, about 8:20, the power went out. Oops. Guess it's cold breakfast. Not to worry. We had food in the house and bundled up. We turned on our gas fireplace and spent most of the morning in that room as the house gradually cooled down. Figuring what to do was the biggest problem as we are so dependant on power for our computers, our cooking, our washing of clothes.

Meanwhile outdoors, beside the front porch our little weeping caragana seemed to be shrinking under the weight of all that ice, and the red maple branches were hurting as well. This is the time when trees often lose their limbs as they creak, creak and often crack. There will be a lot of trees damaged across the area.

Around noon the power came back on and we raced to our computers to connect with the world. Hubby works from home so he checked his email which led to lots of work to keep him busy. I caught up on banking, email, uploading my holiday pictures and a bunch of other things. Around 2:00 p.m. the power died again and we were silent in our front room with the fireplace again. I thought I'd go down to the bank but then realized that I couldn't get the garage door open and would have to walk in all that ice and when I reached the bank it might not have power. Maybe they have a generator but I decided banking could wait till later.

Little did I know that the power would be out till almost 5 p.m. By then banking was way back in my priorities and I quickly heated the soup I had been defrosting all day. I put a kettle of water on to warm in case the power pooped again. Hubby went out on the roof to check on the ice near the drain--don't want a repeat of the freaky freeze we had a few years ago which resulted in a flooded room below and an insurance claim.

The story ends here today, with us still waiting for the sun to come out and melt the ice off the trees. Meanwhile I'm left with my memory, just before I went to bed last night, of the streetlight sliding brightly down the glassy branches as snowflakes drifted lazily to the ground. It was another time to stop and delight in the scene before it melts.