Ice

 Sometime in late January and only a year after my family and I had moved to Kentucky we were happily entrenched in our home during the Ice Storm of 2009. We were lucky during this event because we were only without power for about a week while some places were closed off for a full month. Despite the fact that thousands of people were without power or sometimes even a way to go get food, the ice storm provided some very interesting pictures. It was surreal to walk outside and see some of our tall oak trees bowed over almost in half because the ice had been layered on so thick on their branches that they could no longer hold their own weight. I woke up the morning after the storm and stood outside listening to large 'cracks' that sounded like someone shooting a gun in the distance only to realize that branches were breaking under the weight of the ice. It was so quiet and peaceful in almost a scary way.  This silence stretched out for a week and for some places even longer. The really interesting part about all of it though is that my relatives on the West Coast had no idea what we were going through so when we called them the following week after we had power they were all extremely surprised. 

   Despite the lack of communication and power though, if I was just looking around at the general landscape it was a miraculous looking sight. Here are just a few pictures from around our home during that time period: