Bad day to be a squirrel

So Monday the lines were insane (or so I heard, I didn't actually go) at CountryMart - because they were predicting an ice storm Monday night and most of Tuesday.

Sure enough - Monday night, I got little to no sleep as I listen to the trees coming down around me. The carnage was massive. And when I woke up Tuesday, I was told to not clean up yet - 3 or 4 people had started too early and were hurt when more limbs fell. That was enough incentive for me, as I am quite lazy, and I went back to bed. That afternoon, I was bored out of my mind ... and cold. We'd had no power since Monday night and the temperature in the house at that point was about 50 degrees. (I think anyway, it may have been colder, but that's as far as the thermometer gauge goes on my thermostat.) That afternoon I went outside and worked cleaning up a safe tree with Big Red (Jeff and Leon). It wasn't tons of fun or anything, but it was way warmer and more exciting than just hanging around in my cold house. So Tuesday night bowling was cancelled and the power came back on around 5 or so. I turned on that heater and hoped for the best. We still didn't have cable, but heat! About 30 minutes later - it was out again. So Tuesday night we hunkered down (GO DAWGS!) for a sleepover. Jeff has a generator, so we gassed it up and plugged it in for heat and a movie, Jeff and the kids took my bed and Leon took the guest room and I settled in on the couch! It was the fullest the house has been all year! I have to admit it was a little stressful going from completely alone to living in a clown car, but it was fun...and nice to play hostess. Anyway, we stayed warm all night and Wednesday morning we still had no power. At this point I'm getting nervous, because I didn't go to CountryMart and stand in the insane lines. We're running out of pop tarts, bread, etc! Also, the generator runs on gas! I had filled up the 5 gas tanks the campground has, but we're now down to one. I worked all day on the campground. Pushing the insane carnage of trees into a pile - Jeff took the skid loader, which helped a ton! And Leon, Zach and I used the dump truck which was pretty quick too. Luckily that afternoon we got power back and although it was touch and go, and on and off, it was on most of the night and most of today. We've survived. Kathy and Greg Barton, some frequent campers and friends of Mom's and Dad's came by. They have been here for years and Kathy said this storm belongs in her top three worst.
Today we finished most of the cleanup, although the entrance is still blocked, because cables have fallen on them and I've been told not to touch. We probably won't be allowed to burn, but the city might pick up the pile. We've been told they will pick up what's on the curb - starting Monday - I called the fire department today to ask for an exception - burning would be way easier, but they're not having it. I told them that the campground was hit pretty hard and pushing it to the curb was going to be possible, but would be painful for the crews that had to pick it up... and they said they see. I don't know...
Here are tons of pictures - I used the kids as reference for scale as much as possible. They are pretty average sized kids. :)
Ice Storm 2007

Zach drove the dump truck a lot of the day - especially once Jeff and Leon left to work on other people's mess. Most of the afternoon it was just Zach and me. He's 12 but wants to be 16... so I let him practice slowly around the campground - and then he had a little fun.

Zach in the dump truck