Weather or not, here we go again

I'm very fortunate. I have electricity at home. We have heat.

It is not so good for many of my neighbors. Along my street, we have power. The street parallel to ours and a block north does not. They are among something like 75000 without power tonight, due to the ice and snow storm we've had over the last couple days.

The trees around here are really taking it hard. My next-door neighbor's Water Maple lost several branches today. Most of them fell in their back yard, but one landed on their roof and slid down the front face of their garage roof to the driveway. A car is in the garage, unharmed, but it won't go anywhere until someone removes the branch.

It's not that big a branch, though. When he comes home I may help him remove it. It won't take much. He didn't have time to deal with it before leaving for work this morning, and she is either off work today or got a ride to work (I didn't watch to see which).

Another couple of branches landed on their fence that borders my driveway. I heard the thump as it landed, but didn't recognize the sound. Immediately after I heard the noise, my cat rushed into the room where I was sitting at nearly full speed, having been startled by the ruckus.

I cleared that branch out of the driveway this afternoon. It didn't take long--probably ten or fifteen not-so-rushed minutes of work with a bow saw and a snow shovel. We cleared enough of the driveway to suit us, cleared the walkways, cleaned off the cars, and took some pictures of the neighborhood just for fun.

At this point, I expect I will be going to work tomorrow. I hope New Albany City offices are open, as I need some documents from them to facilitate moving a tenant into the apartments I manage, and that in turn needs to happen for this weekend if it can.