Ice is nice

We were prepared for the worst. We had a refrigerator full of water. We had food. We had our emergency kit. We had the air mattress aired up in case we all had to sleep downstairs by the fireplace. The generator was ready to go. Just general stuff when you're expecting and inch of ice.

Christopher called at 11:30 yesterday to say it was raining in St. Louis and he was on his way home. At 1:15, the schools dismissed early and I had to drive to town in pouring rain (and I still haven't bought a new umbrella...). Ice was forming on everything. Luckily, the roads weren't slick at all. Once home, we settled in and watched the rain continue to pour and keeping a vigil by the continual news cast. This is what we awoke to:





Nearly a quarter-inch of ice. It was very pretty. We were expected to have another straight day of freezing rain, but instead, got 2 inches of sleet. Had it been rain, we'd be in a mess right now. And the snow we were supposed to get has mysteriously vanished from the forecast between 3:30 and 6:00. No idea why they said all afternoon (they had continual storm coverage from noon-3:30) that we'd get anywhere from 4-12 inches overnight to now not getting any. The winds are supposed to pick up to around 40 mph tonight so I imagine we'll have some limbs down overnight. Hopefully no power lines... See that pine tree a few pics above? Ameren came around 2 years ago wanting to chop down our cedar that wasn't anywhere near our lines. We declined and asked them to instead chop down the 30+ ft. pine that is clearly in the lines (you can see them in the picture), but they wouldn't. So here we have this massive pine that is so weighed down with ice, just feet away from knocking down power lines. Nice. I told Granny today that if her power goes out (we're on the same line grid), that it was probably from our tree.

But so far, so good. We've had a few flickers, but no outages. Dad called and his was out for a few hours tonight but is back on. No school tomorrow, so we're just staying in and keeping warm- it's going to be cold tomorrow! Supposed to be -6 tomorrow night. No clue how the roads will be after the blowing all day tomorrow if there will be school Thursday. I'm hoping there isn't. I hate getting out in this weather.