Thawing out after the BIG FREEZE!

For a few days, these Ozark hills looked like a sparkling crystal palace of ice... beautiful to behold, but deadly if you're not prepared. We thought we were...

Oh, we have been through ice storms and power outages before... we're on well water, so we'll draw up some water to drink and enough flush the john, nothing to it.

Tuesday Jan. 27 our electricity went off around 10am and didn't come back on until the afternoon of Friday Feb. 6. We were not prepared. Luckily, we have a wood stove and lots of firewood to keep us warm. There were a few nights that dipped down into the single digits and I slept on the couch to keep wood in the stove throughout the night.

The cold nights and lack of utilities weren't the worst of it, not by a long shot.

Tuesday night, as the trees began to get heavy with the frozen rain that had accumulated on their barren branches, started to crack, snap and fall. Some coming down with the ferocity of a rocket launcher. This horrifying sound repeated every 10-15 seconds, with each sound another tree was breaking and falling on whatever was in it's path. With the darkness, the sounds were even more amplified, sounding like each branch was coming into the house with us. I felt as if we were in an all too real Stephen King horror movie.

With the dawn, came the realization that it was, infact, like a war zone outside. The devastation to our 34 acre hardwood forest was unimaginable to me. It was still unsafe for humans or animals to be outside with the falling treetops. The creaking, cracking and crashing continued throughout the day Wednesday and with nightfall, it was a repeat of the night before. I again, paced the floor, afraid to sleep in my own bed for fear that a tree would come crashing in on top of me while I slept.

The temperature Thursday was above freezing, so the ice began to melt and this made the trees move even more... they began to spring back up from the heaviness of the ice. Now we are pelted with melting ice and falling limbs. Up until now only minor limbs have actually fallen on the roof, since we had the forethought to have the trees around our house trimmed last year. We must have missed one, cause it landed on the porch roof and smashed through where I had been standing not 5 minutes earlier trying to get a cell signal.

It took my husband 2 days with a chain saw to clear our 200 yard driveway of fallen tree limbs so he could return to work. Upon returning home that afternoon, he had to cut up 3 more trees that had fallen while he was gone, to get back to the house. I spent my days carrying in enough wood for the entire night, melting wax on the woodstove and pouring up candles, so we could see to walk around the house at night. All we had to entertain us was a deck of cards and a battery operated radio... we listened to KTLO oldies... it was Frank Sinatra week. I now know everything there is to know about Frank Sinatra.

We came out of this ordeal without any physical damage to us or our pets. One car has $2500 of damage and we are waiting for an insurance adjuster to arrive to determine the property damage. Many throughout Arkansas and Western Kentucky were not so lucky. I know several people who are homeless now, because their homes were so damaged they are uninhabitable. I know from a real estate stand point, it won't help the property values in an already depressed market. Our timber is like gold.

But, hey... look on the bright side... we might get a few more HD channels on DISH Network nowl

One lesson we learned, is that we were NOT prepared. We now have purchased a whole house propane generator (that, a dozen pkgs of C batteries and 5 cases of bottled water is our contribution to boost the ailing economy) that will be installed next week. It didn't help us this time, but maybe... just maybe, we'll be more prepared NEXT time.