calm after the storm

there are a lot of fallen branches, some quite big, in the yard, but everything is very strangely, at least for the moment, very calm.







lake near the shack is flooding and the storm decided to land the neighour's deck. certain someone used to own a row boat but it disappeared...it's probably on the bottom of the lake since the stopper wasn't in its place.







snow still keeps us waiting, these tiny frosty hailstones are the closest to snow. the dog is eternally curious of everything i try to photograph.







all the ditches and streams and flowing like in the spring for all the rain we've had.







that particular stream has been splashing water around creating an ice-garden.







the compost is doing great, this time last year it there was one solid block of frozen matter in the composter...







fresh thyme, anyone? this is a first, fresh herbs from the garden at the end of december.







the dog was very restless during the storm, he doesn't like thunder, nor fireworks...







but he's happy about his new toy, squeeky sloppy squirrel (it said that in the package!)

stranded, or rather held hostage

as luck would have, one thing goes wrong, everything starts following...

i'm sure the fridge/freezer combo at the shack had heard about the big storm approaching and decided to start acting up, as in not keeping stuff cold/frozen. that started on xmas eve and finally in the evening of xmas day certain someone decided to "take a look"...







...fortunately, at that point, we could have the xmas food outside (+4C) and the dog guarding it, though, i think the dog would have loved to sink his teeth on the ham.







during the night between 25th and 26th, the power went off, came on again, went off and as i'm writing this, it's still not on...boiling water on 4 tea lights took only an hour...







...but boxing day evening tea with cake was cosy.







these fallen spruces on the power lines weren't probably the culprit alone for the power outage, but they did hinder us from getting anywhere from the shack for almost 2 days. the other "route" would have required a 4W all terrain vehicle we don't have, yet...







the storm ripped those tall trees with roots off.







fortunately the emergency services came today around noon to "free" us. at the shack the water will go but not come without electricity, so i was very, very happy to get to my apartment to have a shower. and a proper cup of coffee!







we are hoping for the power to come on this evening, but it could be days, there are tens of thousands of homes still with no power. one thing i'm not looking forward is to check the freezers, i'd hate to throw away all those berries and such!