Ice Storm

Get me out of Massachusetts! I'm sitting here in front of the fire at Trisha's house as I make this blog. My flight will leave at 5:35am and I can't get out of here soon enough. Tomorrow means that we in Princeton, MA have been out of power for an entire week. Here are all the pictures of the crazy storm that rocked my world last friday. Enjoy (there are a lot of them)...

The front yard from my window

Front yard

Front yard

The huge pine trees saggin in the front yard

One side of the house (look at all the trees bent down to the ground)

the backyard from my room

backyard

This is a WILD story. As I was sitting in my dark, cold room on thursday night after the power went on I kept hearing these louds cracks that sounded like gunfire all around me. Every crack was followed by a huge thump on the ground. As the rain kept pouring down and the cracks were getting more and more frequent, I was getting more and more uneasy about my car which is normally parked in the front of the house by the basketball hoop under many trees. It was an eerie feeling and I kept feeling really terrible about the situation. I prayed for my car to be safe and I continued on reading my scriptures trying to put it from my mind. However, after each crack, I awaited the smash of the falling branches hitting my car. Finally, I heard this loud crack and I just had this feeling. I got out of my bed, got all dressed up to go outside and proceeded up to my aunt and uncles bedroom to talk to them. I peeked in their room and right away I could tell my aunt was having the same uneasy feeling I was having. I told them that i couldn't take it anymore, I had to move my car and I was willing to move their suburban while I was out there. My aunt ended up coming out with me to move the cars. As we were getting in the cars, we heard cracks and would have to retreat to the clearing until we knew we were safe from falling limbs. We moved the cars to the end of the drive way out of all reach of any trees that would fall. As we were walking back up to the house, there was another really loud, close crack and then a thump. I looked over as the limb was falling and realized that it was landing in the exact spot that my car was only 2 minutes previous!!!! It was the craziest thing I have ever experienced. Had I not gotten up and moved my car, I really would have heard it being smashed by this limb. What a blessing that it was not harmed in the storm!!! Thank you!

Check out the ice that formed on the basketball hoop in a matter of seven hours in the ice storm

I didn't sleep much thursday night cause the breaking limbs were so loud and I'll be honest, it was a really creepy noise. About 2 or 3 in the morning, the trees on the side of the house by my bedroom started drooping down and I could hear them as the wind blew them against the shingles, only feet from my head. Many times I contemplated moving down to the basement to sleep, but the scraping noise finally stopped and I felt safe again. Nearly every tree in this patch is broken in half.

The side of the house. These trees are bent to the ground when usually they are like twenty or thirty feet tall.

This is a close-up of the limbs that somehow ended up under my uncles truck with no signs of actually hitting the truck

This is a close up to show the amount of ice that was accumulating on the falling limbs

Even individual blades of grass were as big as my fingers with ice encasing them

Another close-up of the limbs covered in ice

This is the patch of trees on the side of the house by my bedroom

Check out how cool this looks?!

Limbs falling all around the treehouse

The other side of the house was hit pretty hard but luckily none of the limbs actually hit the house

Sick of the pics yet? We're half way done....

These were not exactly small limbs either, look how thick they are

The drooping trees around the pond

Limbs around the pond

This tree in the front yard near the end of the driveway snapped right in half. It was pretty close to the suburban

The ice covering the suburban mirror

The circle as I venture further out to see the damage

Looking down the street toward the neighbors

The cars parked at the end of the driveway. You can see the tree that snapped in half on the left and you can also see all of the trees sort of bent over due to the weight of the ice.

Another shot of the ice on the limbs

Keaton and I had to work together to get this huge branch out of the road so that we could get passed

Broken and drooping

Its crazy to look out and see all of the fresh wood and realize how many branches fell

Our street was pretty much blocked getting out to the main road

Check out the nieghbors front yard!!!

This is looking up the main road. You can barely tell it's a road!

This is looking down the main road. Same story. It's like a maze getting down the road

More of the trees that bent all the way to the ground

At the top of the street, looking back towards my house

The antenna on my car looked pretty sweet!

This is a bush on the side of the house, how cool does it look?!

This is on the main road and maybe one of the reasons that we still have no power!

No more pictures, but there are some more stories! I'll just recap some of the awesome things that have happened in the last week:

1. My room has been about thirty degrees all week. I've stayed warm because I have several blankets and I tuck myself in except for my face. It's kind of like camping!

2. I had to deficate in the backyard in an ice cave of sorts and put the toilet paper in a zip lock bag.

3. I have taken a shower every morning at the YMCA

4. I have no more clean clothes. I shoved all my dirty clothes in my suit case (without folding them) and shut the blasted thing.

5. I have eaten at nearly every fastfood joint and restaurant in the area and I am really excited for some home cooked goodness

6. I brushed my teeth using one cup of water. I put my contacts on in the dark using only my cell phone to illuminate my eyeball so that I could see what I was poking

7. I had one candle to light my room. I placed it in my lap the other night and wrote all my christmas cards on my knee. I also used this technique to read.

8. Reading is about the only thing to do when you have no electricity. I don't know how they did it in the old days. It gets dark around four thirty and then you just twittle your thumbs until you decided it's time to read and then you read until you fall asleep

I think that pretty much sums it up! It's been a crazy experience that I will remember forever! Keep MA in your prayers cause they are supposed to get at least 10 inches of snow on friday and another big storm on sunday and that could be a huge road block to getting power back on!