Bucket Truck Crew

Getting rid of our “widow makers” hanging in the treetops. Can’t have a bunch of half-broken branches and heavy oak limbs overhead, now can we?! The ice storm surely did wreak havoc on all of the trees.

Burnin’

Pile of Ice Storm Remnants

A Few Hours Later

Baked Sweet Potatoes

Today turned out to be the perfect day to burn… Little wind and comfortable temps. The gigantic pile of fallen branches, chain-sawed tree pieces, and remanants of the ice storm was quite impressive over on the gravel parking lot. Although difficult to get started, once it started burning, oh baby, it burned hot all day. Frank was surprised that the whole pile went, PLUS a bunch of the downed Sycamore trees from our yard, PLUS a few truckloads from the trees down over by the pavilion, PLUS some of my Dad’s bigger pieces brought over in the truck. All up in smoke!

With such a hot fire, we decided to wrap a few sweet potatoes up in tin foil and throw them in — only 15-20 minutes later, they were cooked! That, with some talapia and veggies — and dinner was done!

Love Snow Days!

Cardboard Rides

Weeeeeee

Lianna’s Turn

Weeeeeee, um gravel pit approaching

Reading by firelight

Reading by candlelight

Ice Storm 2009

An Inch+ of Ice Is Heavy

300-Year-Old Oak, Demolished

Crystal Morning on Norfork Lake

View from the 5th Floor

The Road to the Dock, Impassable

Big Majestic Trees, No Longer

“Brrrr”

Poor Trees, Bent Over

Hot-wired the well for water

January 26th, 2009, the ice storm began. The kids were released from school early, at 2:00 pm. Frank and I had been to Wal-Mart where we bought a ton of groceries, water, milk, bread, etc., and we filled up gas in the vehicles and all the gas cans — and it’s a darned good thing we did! Because this was no ordinary ice storm. This was a history-making, terrible ice storm! The electricity went out on Tuesday afternoon, but Frank had the generator ready and running. We ran it mainly for the 4 freezers filled with Omaha steaks, but yes, we needed to keep warm — low temps reached to about 9 degrees. On Day 2, Frank had a stroke of brilliance and “hot-wired” the well pump, so we had water and hot showers (Hallelujah!). We were so lucky not to have major structural damage on any of the cabins. A few big branches fell on the top of Cabin #1, but the skylight did not break. Power lines were broken, poles bent, rain gutters damaged, lights broken — with a ton of work needing to be done, but nothing was drastically demolished.
The trees all look like we’ve been through a tornado. Giant oaks, red buds, mimosas, sycamores…all broken. The road down to the dock was impassable with bent and broken trees; like a wall of wood.

Total days on a generator: 9.
Total days without phone/cell phone: 3.

But we were warm — We all slept in the living room near the gas log fireplace. We brought a mattress up from the “resort stash” so the girls could be together; and Frank and I took to the guest bedroom — worst mattress EVER! Apologies to any guest of ours who had the misfortune of sleeping on that dreadful “taco” mattress! Oh, my, goodness! Sleep was short anyway, because Frank was cycling the generator periodically throughout the night, to keep us warm, and to keep the steaks cold.
I was lucky that I could cook over on the resort side (propane stoves and oven), and Frank BBQ’d steak almost every night (…”Not steak again!”). I made some memorable brownies-from-hell — do you know what it’s like to make brownies with frozen butter and nearly-frozen eggs?!! (Actually, they looked really weird but tasted fine and were eaten all up.)

We are sooooo thankful to have power back! Frank was able to get the wire he needed to fix the resort power yesterday, after many hours of standing at the top of very tall ladders, and all seems to be okay as far as the pipes go. There is still no cable TV, but I’m not complaining, since many people in Arkansas and Kentucky are still without electricity. I thought 9 days away from typing would feel like a vacation. Not. Every day was exhausting! Did I mention how happy I am to have power back…