But If I Had to Perish Twice...

We had a little bit of an ice storm on the night of the 29th. It was preceded by two days of rain, so when you walked on the ice covering the ground, you would break through into the mud. I woke up with a sore throut and no power. My first task was to drive over to Mom and Dad's to bring them to our house. I tried for quite some time to literally break into Betsy's car and Dad's pickup to no avail. I finally was able to get into my pickup through the passenger side. In case you are wondering, a two wheel drive pickup with no weight in the back is not a good mode of transport through ice covered mud. At Mom and Dad's we gathered as many candles as we could, and I ended up going out to the shop to get some flashlights. The shop door was covered with about three inches of ice, but luckily someone (probably me) had left the spade leaning against the side of the shop. After breaking it free I was able to chop at the door knob until I got enough ice off to turn it, and then had to shove against the door with all of my weight to get the door open. Mom and Dad ended up spending the day and the night with us huddled in front of the fire, as the temperature outside steadily dropped. By the next day the mud was no longer an issue as it had frozen.
This is the view out our patio doors.
A broken pole with our house in the backgound.
We had all believed the power company when they estimated our power would be back on in two to five days until we drove up and saw the actual damage to the electric lines.
Chris mentioned hearing about the collapse of some transmission lines, but I must say I was sceptical at the time.