The Lights Are Still Out

So, anyone who has spoken to me in the last week knows this is official, I am incapable of talking about anything other than this massively ridiculous power outage. We had the equivalent of a category one hurricane here in Ohio, thank you Ike, and to say that we're having trouble dealing with the resulting damage would be an understatement. As I mentioned earlier, we are so fortunate to be staying with Matt's parents. I can't imagine living in our house which hasn't had power in a week, despite the fact that tens of thousands of people in this area are doing just that. Mike and Ann are being gracious, wonderful hosts, but I think we'd all agree this has gone on long enough. In our area, at least, the water situation has been resolved, thank goodness.

So how about some pictures?

A huge tree limb down in a yard across the street:

A large limb dangling from a tree at the edge of our yard:

Michael (miraculously in his seat and not screaming) and Harper, chillin' in the yard:

Matt, standing on the spot where we had a huge, rotting tree taken down several weeks ago, please note the proximity to the patio and house. There's no question that Hurrican Ike would have toppled it. We are so darn lucky it was no longer there:

Harper next to the pile of debris from our yard, it extends almost to the stop sign:

Harper and debris from another angle, we talked to the men who came in that white truck, a crew from New Jersey:

The family that picks up sticks together, stays together?

Harper taking a break, apparently picking up sticks is hard work:

We did some clean up today, this after Matt and his dad spent several hours earlier this week dragging all the big stuff out of the yard. Literally anywhere I stood in the yard I could lean over and pick up two handfuls of sticks. Enough tinder and kindling for hundreds of campfires! Earlier this week I actually heard a radio host joke that the firewood salesmen in our area were pretty much out of luck.

One of our neighbors talked to someone from the power company today and was told that it may be well into this week before we have power. Crazy.