Eye Sage

 All but the last of these pictures were taken just after our recent ice storm. The last was after the following snow storm.

Standing in the street you can glimpse our house through the trees.

A closer view from our driveway.

Everything got coated in ice.

A very thick coating of ice.

These tracks prove neither ice nor snow will keep the squirrels away from the bird feeders.

click on any ice cube to enlarge the photo

snow trouble et al

Some more pics from the recent snow. Click on each to upgrade to big size.

In order these are: the front of the house as seen from the yard, our neighbor to the north's barn, our southern neighbor's back yard, the road in front of our house.

Power Arrangers

As always, click on the photo to enlarge it.

Freezing rain was falling all yesterday and today. At some point last night I woke up to think there was something wrong. I couldn't figure out what it was though. I looked over at the clock and couldn't see it. The power was out. All the small electrical humming from the dozens of electric and electronic devices one owns that makes a constant background noise was gone!

Okay, so no power, no alarm clock. And no lights. No radio, tv, or computer. No microwave, but the stove? It's electric too. Electric hot water heater, so no hot shower. No cold shower either, since the pump that gets our water out of the well is electric. So no flushing the toilet more than a couple of times. Thank goodness we have oil heat. Except that the apparatus to make it work is electric. No heat.

When we finally decided to get up, we used our flashlights to get out the candles and matches after rummaging around for a long time trying to find them. Carrie went off to work a little early because the roads were a bit slippery. I went shopping.

Home Depot had their emergency generator going so I could see what I was looking for and pay with my debit card. I got some batteries for the radio, a propane heater, and a propane tank. I went off to the rental center nearby since they had propane. They didn't have an emergency generator though, so had no way of providing the propane. I got directions to a home supply store in Brunswick called Downeast. They not only had propane, but were up and running with full power.

I called the landlord a couple of times during the day. Cheery news was he also had a power outage. And he said last time, people went 3 days without power. I called Pet Pantry, since I saw the main drag in Freeport was lit and I knew they knew what was happening in town. Everybody on duty today had their home power out also. The boss had called the power company and been told it would be a couple of days before power was restored.

But an hour later, just before 5, I heard the heat start up and saw the power buttons on the tv and dvd player glowing! Power is restored! And I'm blogging this in hopes I get the tale posted before we're down aga