This picture below is just the small branches that created a 200 foot long row that was 8 feet wide and 4 feet high. The bigger logs were dragged down the hill and piled up there in piles that were several feet high. By now, 13 years later much of it has likely become compost. I had piles of smaller branches all over the woods behind the house.
The ice storm destroyed many trees. The night it started there were limbs exploding off trees all over the farm. They sounded like shotguns firing. The sounds were horrendous all night long. Our power went down early that evening and the next morning, when I looked out the windows, it looked like we suffered from an artillery barrage.
During the night one huge branch perhaps 250-300 pounds hit the roof, slid off the ice and then hit the deck and shot like a torpedo on the deck knocking out several balusters there.
It turned out that it took me months on end to move all the debris out of sight. I know at this point in my life I could never accomplish that daunting task. The daily upkeep and the possibility of another event like the ice storm was a big part of why we sold the farm and moved to town. The pictures below are just a sample of what was downed in the storm. It was far worse than what you see here and it was widespread.
The last picture below is me refueling myself by the fireplace about mid-day with a fresh beer. It took a lot of beer to make it through the outdoor mess. In the lower left corner there are logs for the fire. Everything we had to burn was outside and frozen, so we had to stage our wood on the living room floor to thaw it out enough to keep the home fires burning. One or the other of us was working close to 24 hours a day to keep the heat going so our pipes didn't freeze and burst. There was water in them, but with 14 days of no electricity we had no way to pump water. The best we could do was warm up to about 40 degrees during the day. Taking baths by the fire using ice I found on the garage roof and heating it on the gas stove was a challenge. The appearance of which, I leave to your imagination if you can handle that.
We had talked about our age and what would happen when one of us passed away for 2 years before we left the farm. Neither of us could manage the farm alone and neither would want to live there alone. It turned out that just a year and a half after leaving the farm when Joyce's tribulation occurred, had we still been on the farm, she would have died on October 19 when her aneurysm burst. She would never have lived long enough for an ambulance to get her to the hospital. We were in the emergency room when it happened and the hospital team was just 10 feet away and they barely revived her. She was technically dead for several minutes.
The irony here is the the horrible ice storm and the long work hours after led us to move and be in a place where Joyce could survive and be here with me today.
During the night one huge branch perhaps 250-300 pounds hit the roof, slid off the ice and then hit the deck and shot like a torpedo on the deck knocking out several balusters there.
It turned out that it took me months on end to move all the debris out of sight. I know at this point in my life I could never accomplish that daunting task. The daily upkeep and the possibility of another event like the ice storm was a big part of why we sold the farm and moved to town. The pictures below are just a sample of what was downed in the storm. It was far worse than what you see here and it was widespread.
The last picture below is me refueling myself by the fireplace about mid-day with a fresh beer. It took a lot of beer to make it through the outdoor mess. In the lower left corner there are logs for the fire. Everything we had to burn was outside and frozen, so we had to stage our wood on the living room floor to thaw it out enough to keep the home fires burning. One or the other of us was working close to 24 hours a day to keep the heat going so our pipes didn't freeze and burst. There was water in them, but with 14 days of no electricity we had no way to pump water. The best we could do was warm up to about 40 degrees during the day. Taking baths by the fire using ice I found on the garage roof and heating it on the gas stove was a challenge. The appearance of which, I leave to your imagination if you can handle that.
We had talked about our age and what would happen when one of us passed away for 2 years before we left the farm. Neither of us could manage the farm alone and neither would want to live there alone. It turned out that just a year and a half after leaving the farm when Joyce's tribulation occurred, had we still been on the farm, she would have died on October 19 when her aneurysm burst. She would never have lived long enough for an ambulance to get her to the hospital. We were in the emergency room when it happened and the hospital team was just 10 feet away and they barely revived her. She was technically dead for several minutes.
The irony here is the the horrible ice storm and the long work hours after led us to move and be in a place where Joyce could survive and be here with me today.
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