Tag Archives: ice storm of 2000

Friday 1-3-2025

Mary-Lou Fricke-Neal – Pinterest

I don’t know if Mary Lou created this or pinned it on Pinterest because she loved it, too. Either way, I just loved it when I found it. Such gorgeous layers and 3-D-ness!

We’re going to shop for supplies after lunch today because the possibility of wintry precipitation is in the forecast. We live on top of a ridge line outside of town, up a 650′ plus steep driveway, so we take forecasts of possible ice and snow really seriously.

One year, I think it was 2000 or 2001, we had a really bad ice storm. Public water wasn’t available. Public power wasn’t, either. Our son was home then. We were stuck up here for 14 days. We could hear the loud cracking of our trees losing branches. It sounded like guns were being shot. We had MANY branches and whole trees that fell into the driveway from both sides, blocking us from getting out.

We have well water, so we were able to switch to that. We had a Chinese diesel generator in the well house. That was good and was enough for us to have some light, but no heat. We have a wood burning fireplace. We have propane for our stove.

Shortly after the storm, the generator blew its gasket. In order to keep it from overheating, my husband and son filled a large trash can with snow and dumped it on top of the generator every half hour.

It took us three days to chainsaw our way down the driveway to the road that runs in front of our house.

Ever since, we take prep for winter seriously. We now have a generator wired into the house. We stock up on food and water getting what is reasonable to keep us as comfortable as possible if we get iced in. Do you see why winter is not my favorite season? :0)

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Golden Road Arts

I never got up to my art room yesterday. I ended up finishing tax spreadsheets for the year. Hopefully, I’ll get some time this afternoon after we shop to try some glass etching. I’m trying to do my own floral design by hand with a Dremel.

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I hope that January is starting well for you and that 2025 is a terrific year for you and your family.

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February 2022

Aaron of the Australian Firefighters helps us welcome February. Almost makes me wish for a very small grass fire (controlled) nearby so he would come and check it out. www.australianfirefighterscalendar.com
Thanks to my friend, Susy, we can enjoy Matt Dixon’s calendar decoration (The Artist) for February 2022. I would give my heart to this sweet robot any time. mattdixon.co.uk/

I just checked on my raised bed square foot garden planters. The tarps covering the six boxes, plus the bungie cords I used to secure them, are really brittle now. As soon as we get through this winter storm, we’ll go get replacement tarps and more cords to protect the planters as much as we can for the rest of the winter.

The forecast now is more ice than snow. We had a bad ice storm in 2000 (we think) that brought so much damage to the state it still hasn’t recovered. We stood on the porch and heard the branches cracking like gunshots as they broke off and fell. We were stuck up her with a China Diesel generator that overheated in the well house and blew the gasket on top. My husband and our son started shifts to make sure that a barrel we kept filling with water and snow kept the generator going, and we switched to well water. We were without public power and public water for 14 days, if I remember right. When we made it through that, we looked for a replacement for the generator and got really serious about keeping extra water and food on hand.

Our son now lives where there are two seasons: “extreme summer” and “wet summer”. He thinks it’s frigid if he has to wear shoes, jeans, and a hoodie. :0) My husband and I are on our own in this storm. The generator did its automatic test without incident last Thursday. Hopefully, it will do its job if we need it. It runs everything except heat or cool, and we have a fireplace backup and electric blankets. I got food after my haircut today, so we’re pretty much set.

Stay safe, warm, and dry!

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