Snow Casualty or "Why We Should Build a Room Onto Our House"

We got hit by a freak snowstorm yesterday and awoke to 9 inches of snow on the ground and everything in sight. A nice ending to the month of February but really freaky, since it was 70 degrees 2 days ago, and we expect to see 70 degrees later this week. What could be really upsetting is that not only is the south not ready for this type of weather, but there was nothing we could do to prevent the destruction that awaited us this morning.

We have a canopy over the patio in the backyard.

Correction: We HAD a canopy.

The weight of the snow weighed down the canvas and bent the bars holding the canvas up. The result is an inverted canopy with lots of snow and ice still on it. Fortunately, we are not panicking about it. Casualties are to be expected during weather of this kind. I related to the boys how the roofs of shopping centers have been known to collapse under this kind of weight, and that we were lucky to have escaped serious damage to our house and garage. In fact, we were fortunate not to lose power and heat.

Memphis is known to be ill-prepared for any type of extreme weather. We lose power in the cold, in the heat, during storms, and for no reason at all. We had an ice storm here February 11, 1994 and it collapsed trees onto power lines. We lost power and heat, but we were lucky. We were only out of power for 40 hours. The rest of the city and suburbs were out for up to 3 weeks. When we found out the extent of the damage from that storm, Steve and I traversed the mangled city streets to get to where he works to borrow a generator. We were able to run 3 things from the generator. We alternated between the tv, lights, heat and the refrigerator. The Winter Olympics were on tv, and we sat watching them, while I made sweaters for the boys with my knitting machine. I made sweaters for both of them during that storm, and when the boys outgrew them, I put them safely away in the attic as memories.

Another storm gave us straight-line winds that toppled several thousand hundred-year-old trees in the city, and took down 2 of our own trees. Again, the city streets were a snarled mess. We were fortunate to escape that storm without damage to our vehicles. Down the street, a neighbor wasn't as lucky. Their large tree rested in the middle of their smashed car, right in front of their house. If the tree had fallen the other way, it would have collapsed their roof. Again we were out of power, but the weather was warm that time, so we could do without a generator for the most part. But we drove to West Memphis to take our showers at my husband's mother's house. The area has still not quite recovered from those winds. The forest at Shelby Farms looked as if a buzz saw had cut off the tops of the trees.

So back to our canopy. This is the second time we have lost a canopy over that patio. Since we tiled over the old broken concrete, the time may soon be arriving when we will put up a solid roof and walls there. It would be a nice addition to the house, and would add a weather-proof path to our workout room (garage) as well as about 200 more square feet. We could add a free-standing fireplace to the room or a hot tub, and my plants would have a nice sunny place to grow without taking up all the floor space in the rest of the house.

Or we could just move.

Nazdrovie'

Paczki Puta