Thinking about all our New England members, along with the folks in New York who are without power right now!

Hope everyone else is hanging in there! What are you doing to get through? Yabbit???Soxmom, GG, and others???

We're running a generator a few hours a day to power up the fridge and freezer, recharge the laptop battery, and inviting neighbors to stop in and warm up and have a hot drink. We heat with wood so we have heat and a place to cook, a BBQ for grilling on, doing a lot of one pot meals and using up perishables in the fridge, not opening the freezer at all, drawing water from the well by hand (we have an old pitcher pump that we hook up when this stuff happens), oil lamps and candles and flashlights for light, generally just staying comfortable and warm, but we are used to this! We even still have a rotary dial phone, one of those old black heavy jobbers that works no matter what! Lots of people get the new phones and don't realize that they won't work without power!

Most of the neighbors have similar setups but there are a few who have no alternate power source OR heat source and they are sticking it out too! We took the generator around to their places to help get their fridges up to temp, run their pump so they could get some water stocked up for drinking, washing and to flush with () and lent them camp stoves to cook on. Others with portable generators are doing the same. It's pretty cool to have neighbors who help out! One of ours brought his chainsaw down and cut up all the branches and trees that fell on my road so I could get out and helped to remove branches that were hanging on the wires so when the power comes back on, we get it too!

I have no year round neighbors close to me, so I went around and did a survey of the summer places on my road and called the people with their damage reports and let them know what we had done to make sure that they would have no fires or wind/cold damage from broken windows, etc.

A birch tree fell on my garage but it did no damage and was gone the next day after the neighbor cut it up! We already stacked that wood and it will make a lovely summer fire next year, and we will drink a glass of wine and tell some "Remember when" stories about the Great Ice Storm of 2008!

Have power here, but am surrounded by ice. its everywhere! thick coats of it on everything. I too live in a space that doesnt have year round neighbors, but there is little damage here. Just a few short miles in either direction, and its a different story. Tons of damage, and no power. for now we are cozy and dry.

Sheesh, River, I've been reading all about it. How awful..

I'm glad you are prepared and are sorta comfy and warm. It is kinda danged inconvenient though..

Is there any estimate on getting your power back?

Be careful everyone out there. Ice storms are far worse than snow storms. I'll be praying for all of you. God bless you RW and your neighbors for helping each other out.

*googling houses to live near RW*

That's so sweet of you to look out for your neighbors like that. I'm sure they appreciate it. I've been watching this news story unfold and I really hope that they can get the power back on to all those folks. Messy weather is one thing but no power to go along with it is just terrible. Ya'll stay safe. Are you near Yabbit? Have you heard from her?

All our ice here melted yesterday. It was 45 degrees out. It's colder today but the sun has been shining all day and the rest of it is gone. Further west away from the coast is a different story. They didn't get the warm wind and it's still like fairyland as far as appearance, with ice on all the standing vegetation and objects. Branches are still hanging to the ground, wires are down, roads are still being cleared. Unfortunately that fairyland is causing more havoc as it melts or gets too heavy for the branches, depending on where you live!

Power companies from out away from the storm are coming in once again to give us a hand with electricity. Thanks go out from everyone here for their help! They aren't just hooking it up, they are out there cutting away trees and branches and in some cases, having to rewire whole neighborhoods.

You are a wonderful neighbor River! I wanna live next to you! Heck! I will just come live with ya! You are a good cook right?

(I bet she cleans too!)

(Taffy stuffing clothes and books into suitcase.)

Hey, can I bring my doggie?

Hey, I was in line first!

I am fine! Our power only flickered the first night. Knocking on wood right now!

I talked with GG yesterday - she was without power at home and at work. (That is quite funny cause she works for the power company) She said she thought it would be 3 or 4 days until she gets power.

RW - I tried to call you and got no answer! You must of been outside or something? You can come stay with us if you want!! We can play Liquorama!

And at 10:00 P.M. all of a sudden, every freakin' light in the house comes on!!!

(never forget to shut off the lights when you lose power! That goes double for the stove!)

The power company actually called me three times today to ask if my power was back on and to assure me that the trucks were working their way to us! They had to cut loose a LOT of folks with damage to their lines and tell them that after power was restored to everyone with no damage, they would come back and fix their torn out meter boxes and damaged wires.

Luckily we had no damage when the branches we had on our wires came down!

(now washing clothes and dishes and waiting for a hot shower!!)