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The view of my parent's backyard

Back home in Oklahoma this week, most of my family has been under the weather--under a thick sheet of ice. 

A massive ice storm left my parents without power for five whole days.  They have a minimum of $1,000 worth of tree limb removal in their yard and their home phone isn't working.  My mom had to throw out everything in her refrigerator, but was afraid to replace it with too much since a snow storm was on its way.  To say that the whole thing has been a mess would be an understatement. 

Ice storms are the ugly step-sister of winter weather.  They aren't like snow storms that blow in a beautiful world of white that you can't wait to play in.  No, ice storms create nothing but a mess. 

What these storms do to trees and nature is just mean and nasty.  My mom told me that I won't even recognize the city when we travel home in a couple of weeks, which makes me very sad.  Part of the beauty of the city where we used to live (and where our family continues to live) is that it is filled with trees.  They line the sidewalks, creating canopies that arch over the city streets.  Now these canopies are broken and lying in the middle of the streets instead of over them. 

A parent at the Cheese's school who also grew up in Oklahoma was telling me a story about one of his family members back home.  Seems that one of the trees in his yard was so heavy with ice that it fell right over, taking the power lines with it.  The downed power lines caught the whole tree on fire, but there was no need to call 911 because all of the ice surrounding the tree put the fire out.  Probably a good thing since the fire department would have a hard time getting to his house with all the limbs and ice covering all of the roads. 

I was telling some friends out here in California about the mess back home.  One of them asked what exactly an ice storm was.  He had grown up in Southern California his whole life and has never encountered much winter weather--of any kind!

I found it hard to explain actually.  I'm certainly no weather girl, so I tried my best to explain the freezing rain that covers everything in a solid sheet of ice.  I told him how even the strongest trees can't hold up under inches and inches of solid ice, and how when they break off and hit your house it sounds like a gun going off.

It will be sad to see all of the brokenness when we return home for Christmas, but I'm grateful that my family and friends are all okay. 

"Oklahoma where the wind--and the ice storms--comes sweeping down the plain.  Where the waving wheat can sure smell sweet when the wind comes right behind the FREEZING rain!"