Hot water again!

Pretty, isn't it? (All of the pictures are clickable if you want to see larger versions.)



In this picture the icicles are hanging straight down, which wasn't the case for most of the icicles--the weight of the ice caused the tree branches to bow and finally break, and the icicles made interesting arcs.

Our yard looks like a war zone, and the falling branches took out most of our chain-link fence:

That's the neighbor's dog, who was quite interested in all the smells! :-)

Thank goodness the power is back on!

Our house is all electric--there is no gas line to the house. So when the power goes out, so does the hot water and the oven! No cooking, no warm water, no lights, nothing. The power company has done an incredible job of getting us back up and running. The kids are still out of school because about half of the schools here don't have power, but they're getting everyone back up pretty quickly. The original estimate was three to 11 days, so they're really pushing hard! Unfortunately there are still a lot of people without power.

This is the neighbor's tree that almost came through our back door--two more inches and we would've had a lot of glass broken.

It totally creamed our porch swing, and it takes a LOT of force to bend tubular steel! It was a graphic demonstration of why you don't want to be standing under a tree when branches start coming down!

The purple is an outline of the now very oddly-shaped porch swing. I have no idea how we're going to get rid of it. Hopefully the sanitation department will take it, although they usually don't take things like that.

Not much knitting has been done, mostly because this is how I had to do it:



After the power came back on I managed to finished the quilting on the harpiscord cover for my Dad:



I started it before the power went out, and it was just horrible to look at it and KNOW that I couldn't work on it until the power came back on. It was 8 yards of 60"-wide fabric. I managed to get it done in time for my Mom to throw it in her suitcase, throw the suitcases into the truck, and speed to the airport. It was a bit tight there at the end!

Luckily I was able to do some spinning during the brief time that there was enough natural light, and I got the blue sparkly lace-weight stuff done at last! I bought the 4 ounces of roving in May at the Snake River Fiber Fair, and it's taken me seven months to get it spun up. Pathetic! Pictures next time, hopefully.

I hope everyone is staying warm! If the storm is headed your way, go buy D-cell batteries NOW--the entire city of Tulsa seems to be sold out of C- and D-cell batteries and chain saws. Don't forget about non-perishable food, and a way to warm it up. Needless to say, once things are restocked in the stores around here we'll be buying some back-up supplies....

Have a great day!