Crystalline Misery

My friend, Sue, asked me last night if I had given up on the blog. "No!", I replied, but was forced to admit I had been very quiet. Ridiculously quiet for someone who started a blog to connect with the rest of the world.

Sorry.

It's easy to get quiet and caught up in yourself with the winter we have had. Either that, or scream your head off in frustration as winter pounds away...I just opted for the former.

The latest:

Ice storm #2. ( There was actually another 3rd little one snuck in there, but who's counting?) These storms leave me feeling both awed and very tired. When the sun came out yesterday, the landscape looked as if it had been put together with glass trees and bushes. Brilliant, glittering branches everywhere you looked, and lots of them broken. I can't capture the amazing beauty with my limited camera skills; I don't know if anyone can. It truly might be one of those things you have to see to believe.

Roads were blocked with broken trees, downed power poles, and icy automobile accidents. Power was out for days for many neighbors. (We luckily, won the power lottery and didn't lose ours - for once!) The family down the road actually threw up their hands and went for the Hilton after the second day of no power...

I skated out to take care of the animals, and paused to listen to the whine of chain saws and chopping of logs and branches, and was just overwhelmed with the misery of battling winter yet again...

And then Candy waddled by with a dose of perspective...

"You haven't spent the winter locked in a barn full of spastic chickens!"

(Somedays, it just feels that way.)