Western Kentucky, where my parents live, was hit really hard by a January ice storm. It's so sad seeing the trees, or rather, what's left of them. There isn't a single tree in my parents' town that wasn't damaged or completely destroyed. My parents live on a little one-lane back-road with pretty much nothing but woods all along the sides. (That's their mailbox alongside the road in the picture above.) They were without power for 18 days. They are on a well so no power means no fresh water. They had some warning that the storm was coming so they had some water stored but not enough for 18 days. They have gas logs and a Fisher Mama Bear wood burning stove as alternative heating solutions so they stayed warm and mom was able to cook on the wood stove or they fired up the grill. They always have enough food stored to feed an army so they ate well. Unfortunately, generators were in high demand and they ended up losing their 2 deep freezers full of food (think: corn, okra, peas, green beans, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, etc.... all homegrown, picked, husked, shelled, washed, cut, blanched, frozen, etc. by my parents) before they were able to find a generator. It took them several days of hard labor to cut their way out of their road.
This was my first time seeing my hometown since the storm. Trees that were in our yard for the entire 42 years of my life are either gone or damaged so badly that we don't know if they'll make it or not. Maples, Oaks, Redbuds, Cedars, Elms, this storm wasn't particular, it tried to destroy them all.
There are piles and piles and piles of broken branches and trees everywhere you look. For several months, FEMA workers (subcontractors) were going up and down the roads clearing the piles but this particular pile in my parents front yard was a couple of feet too far from the road for them to get.
My uncle has a backhoe. While we were visiting, he brought it over and he and my dad (consider that my dad is 70 and my uncle is a few years older) went to work cleaning up some of the dangerous dangling branches, cutting them from up in the trees. That's my dad up in the bucket cutting some branches from their willow tree. It was a nerve wracking day.
They spent the better half of the day cutting branches and consolidating several brush piles into 2 major piles out in my parents' field. My kids were thrilled at the brush fires that took place once they had the piles ready.
Dad took his tractor out there a couple of times a day to stir up the fire and try to get it to burn everything. Those piles smoked for at least a week.
Once we'd had some rain and the fires were completely out, we looked out one morning and saw a lone wild turkey wandering through the field. I grabbed my camera and walked out there.
That silly turkey went to the pile of ashes and had a blast. I don't know what she was doing, taking a bath maybe? She'd sit down in the ashes and fluff up her wings and stir up a big cloud of ash.
Then she'd stand up and shake it all off. She kept doing this over and over. She knew I was out there, I was on the other side of the pea patch from her (those lines are electric fencing that dad & I put up to keep the deer out of the peas). She kept an eye on me but, uncharacteristically, she didn't run away.
This went on for 10 minutes before I got bored and wandered off.
More about our Kentucky trip later...
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