RAIN, ICE, SNOW, WINDS, SNOW, WINDS, SNOW, WINDS, SNOW, WINDS

We have survived the blizzard but we’re still snowed in.  We lost power briefly twice– very lucky.  It came back on and we stayed warm.  The hurricane force winds – this was a snow hurricane complete with eye – howled all night keeping us awake and scared.  Great crashes.  It was snowing too hard to see what was happening, but we felt bombarded.  Things banging into the house and dropping hard on the roof.  Our road has not yet been plowed. As I write, Ira has gone outside to begin cleaning the way to the truck and the road.  It will take him most of the day, with periods to get warm and rest.  Obviously, he won’t drive to Orleans today to do the week’s shopping.  I only hope my assistant can get here tomorrow to work with me.  She may be snowed in longer than us as she is not on a town road in Truro, so I don’t know if anyone on the road pays for it to get plowed. The sun is out finally and everything glitters.  Nothing has normal contours under all the snow.  It seems to be a wet snow as it still clings to branches and bows down the wire fence around the main garden and the evergreens.  I judge temperature often by the leaves of the many rhododendrons I planted years ago.  I’d say it’s in the mid twenties now. Efi, the oldest now that Malkah is dead, paid no attention but all the other cats were nervous during the storm.  it started as rain, became snew, then ice, then snow and then more snow and so on for more than 24 hours.  The wind was ferocious.  It’s hard to tell how much snow actually fell as the wind blew it into huge drifts.  It’s beautiful in a somewhat frightening way.  The cats would line up in the bay window and watch the storm and then come to one of us for comfort.  While it was light, the birds swarmed the feeders even during the storm. I unplugged my computer when the lights started flickering. They flickered a great deal, went dark now and then.  As I said, the power went out twice. It felt very strange to be without my computer for such a long time, but I was afraid of a surge.  A surge protector only does so much.  I kept an eye on my email via my Android.  Far less came in, fortunately.  I read, watched the storm reports on TV mainly keeping an eye on the radar.  Finished a book of short stories, started a nonfiction book. Read Natural History magazine.  Made a supper of pasta for us and drank red wine.  Played with Xena, Mingus and Puck. The night before the storm three cats took part in a great mouse hunt.  We live in the woods, so we get mice.  Efi is too old to hunt and Sugar Ray is a pacifist, has never killed so much as a moth.  Xena finally dispatched it, and having been a feral kitten, promptly ate it.  No remains to clean up. I do not interfere unless the mouse survives the night.  I feel any mouse that can escape for that long deserves to live, so I catch it myself and put it outside. I’m late writing this blog this week – normally I write it Saturday, but I did not have the use of my computer. I’m trying to remember what the earlier part of the week was like, but I think the storm overwhelmed my memory.  We were supposed to have friends over Saturday night for supper, but of course that never happened. I was going to make a pot roast.  Next weekend, snow date – unless we have another storm.Well, now I know how personally lucky we are.  A big white fir I planted decades ago cracked at the base and fell but missed both our shed and our truck.  Much of the town is without power and nothing seems to be happening.  Ira drove around town this afternoon to assess damage.  He found a lot of it.  Power lines down in many places, maybe half the town without power, downed trees blocking streets and roads, big erosion on the great beach. it was a snow hurricane indeed.