Fall Storm

A few weeks ago, we were hit by the early winter storm that wrecked havoc on the east coast. Since then, life has been a bit discombobulated, with being out of power for a dew days, me traveling for work, and deadlines that won't quit for Greg. So, I'm playing a little bit of catch both around the house, and with the blog. 

So, first, let me tell you about the storm.

The slushy rain started early in the evening, the weekend before Halloween. Greg and I went out to dinner and a movie with our friend Steve. By the time we got home that night, the snow was starting to accumulate. Sometime after 10:00 that night, we heard a loud crash, and the power went out. We went to the bedroom window, and this is what we saw.

It's never good when there is a heavy wet snow before the leaves have fallen off of the trees. I remember an early October storm when I was a kid that caused endless days of power outages. When we saw the tree bent over in the side yard, we figures we'd loose the tree, but we had no idea what we were in for for the next few days. 

Sure enough, within about another half hour, we heard another snap. In the morning, this was the view out the dining room window. 
 

I'm definitely sad to see this tree go. We had a nice shady spot for the hammock at the side of the house,  a lot of which was provided by this tree. But, it is true that the area was a it over grown, and we were having trouble deciding what to do. I guess sometimes nature has to take it's course. 

Greg and I got bundled up and headed out to survey the damage. We cut up the tree a bit so that we could pull it off of other limbs that hadn't yet snapped. We lost quite a few limbs off of the overgrown lilac seen right behind Greg. I'm sad about that too, but again, it was over grown. 

This is our azalea, looking quite droopy. 

Even the forsythias looked a little bit smaller. 

Above, is another one of our overgrown lilacs with a few snapped limbs. 

And...a branch fell from the large pine tree in back as well. 

Thankfully, on Saturday night, we realized it could be awhile before we had power. We decided to empty the freezer, (which had been recently stocked, including a home cooked shepherd's pie from my mom), into coolers. We figured that the snowy back stairs were colder than the freezer soon would be. In the morning, when we still didn't have power, we emptied the rest of the fridge into coolers as well. 

Unfortunately, it was actually a really warm day, into the 50s. I started to worry that we were going to loose everything. Luckily, while chatting with our friends Doug & Lis, who has offered us a hot dinner and a place to shower, also happened to have room in their basement chest freezer, so we made a trip down with all of our frozen items. We didn't end up loosing anything frozen. 

Sunday night, after Doug & Lis's hospitality, we returned home, out on lots of layers, and snuggled up under extra blankets. Thank goodness that it was actually reasonable outside. 

Monday morning, Halloween, still no power. We spent the evening visiting Louis instead of hanging out in the cold and dark, and repeated the layered pajamas of the night before. I was beginning to loose patience! Tuesday with no change. We could see the branch down the street that was still hanging over the wires. The frustrating thing was that all of the streets around us never lost power! We spent the afternoon making arrangements to head to our friend Michael and Sabrina's later that night for another hot shower. But, before I headed home that night, Michael texted me to tell me he'd seen this on his way home from work....

Our porch light, what a beautiful sight! 

And ever since, we've still been trying to get caught back up from our nearly three day adventure without power. Eventually, I will get around to telling you about the progress we made in our office, the weekend before the storm when my mom was here for a visit. I also have a bunch of photos of the progression of fall through our yard. So stay tuned!