An Ice Storm in April...Only In Canada

We had a wicked ice storm last Friday. Nothing too traumatic happened to us. We lost power a couple of times throughout the day for about an hour at a time. Our trusty wood stove served it's purpose and even our iPods eased the pain of the t.v. not working. Others, however, were without power for a couple of days and trees and limbs and branches were falling all over the place. At first it was very exciting to think of all the potential free wood we would be able to collect and store for next year but in reality, these trees were all "alive" and would probably take a couple of years to dry out enough to burn. We don't have the space for that.

But, service opportunities abounded so for Family Home Evening tonight we got out our work gloves and rain boots (and chainsaw) and set out to a family who lives on the outskirts of Orangeville who had a giant, probably 50-year-old maple tree fall on their house. Luckily their front veranda took all the damage and windows were protected but it was a sad loss of a gorgeous tree.

This isn't their house but a good example
of the size of trees this storm took down.

Rene set to work at getting the main trunk of the tree down to manageable pieces while the rest of us hauled all the branches out to the back of their house to be burned in their fire pit. And by the rest of us I mean myself and the other mother. Our nine children combined disappeared the minute ours set foot on the ground.

A side note...they have a beautiful property. I'm not sure how many acres but when I asked how far their property went it was with eyes squinting and finger pointed at the furthest point I could see before the road bend. It was like the girls were finally set free and they ran and ran and ran. There was a trampoline out back somewhere and they jumped and jumped and jumped. If they happened to run close to the pile we were working with I threw a branch in their direction to drag away with them.

This family did have an older son who is in Young Men's with Rene. When Rene asked him if he would like a go at the chain saw he cooly shrugged his shoulders and grunted sure but he couldn't hide the excitement from his eyes! It's amazing what a non-father person will let other people's children do. His father had a chainsaw but wouldn't think of giving it to his 16-year-old son to operate (and he wasn't there tonight to say otherwise).  I've never operated the chainsaw myself and can honestly say I have no desire to do so. It's probably something I should try at some point.

I know the focus of the night was suppose to be service but it was so nice to see the girls outside running without any boundaries...especially the one who tends not to run and skip ahead but dawdle behind anytime we go anywhere. We did manage to bring out a few rakes and they made an attempt to pile leaves (think bucket of water in a lake in terms of how many leaves there were on this massive property) but at least they were doing something!

We were even treated to a FHE dessert of German Chocolate cake with real wheat and real sugar. That alone made all the "hard" work worth it.

As much as I love our house and where we live I think if we could afford to live in the country we would. There's a renovated century home we always pass on the way to family dinner at Mom's that I love...it's been up for sale twice. It was such a different feeling being out in nature. Going outside to play here is puttering about in the sandbox or drawing with chalk on the sidewalk. The girls actually got out of breath and didn't mind! I won't even think about how much Paris would enjoy it. There are pros and cons of both lifestyles. I'll just be so happy when the weather turns that we can once again ride bikes to school. Evelyn has been asking every morning if we can ride...I think next week might be the week.