Jan. 15, 2007 ~ Ice
Okay, so I admit it. When it comes to ice, I'm a big baby. It scares me, plain and simple. So here it is, 32 degrees, with things looking rather frosty outside, and where am I? At home, warily eyeing the trees nearest the house. Of particular concern is the large one in the photo below. It isn't that far from the house, and were it to fall in this direction, it would hit us. Our last ice storm was several years ago, and it involved a new roof, caused by huge frozen branches crashing down. A tree also fell across the driveway, trapping us here until a saintly neighbor brought over a couple of chain saws and his truck (complete with hay lift) and got us out. Not that we could go anywhere.
This time it's not quite so bad, and I certainly hope and pray that we get through this without incident. But I am worried. Since Saturday morning, just 2 short days ago, we've had 9.4 inches of rain. We've had an additional 2.2 inches this month. Over 11 inches of rain in a short period of time, on a very drought-stressed landscape, does not bode well. Trees are just falling over. It's not the wind, and this started happening before the ice hit. The roots are weakened and the ground is saturated, so the trees fall. It happened last time here -- again, I'm hoping that history does not repeat itself. There is also a fair-sized tree right outside our bedroom window. So, yuck.
I'm staying home from work today. So far as I know, only one person has gone in. It's currently 31 degrees, and the roads aren't iced over yet, but, hey, like I said, I'm a big baby. The THREAT of icy roads is enough to keep me home. That and the trees falling on the roads. The way I look at it, this is just one, or possibly two days of icy weather, and this only happens every few years. So I'll just stay home.
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Later that evening...
Temperatures hovered between 30 and 33 degrees all day, but for the most part the roads did not ice up. I stayed home anyway. It was a gamble I didn't want to take.
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Here's a shot of the boys, taken in an earlier ice storm. That's not snow on the ground, it's ice. Funny thing, when we used to speak of "the boys," we were talking about our sons. Now that they are grown and away from home, "the boys" are our two paint geldings. They get first choice of rooms on the ark.
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