Winter Sounds

I live seven miles from Indianapolis International Airport; about a mile-and-a-half north of a busy interstate highway; and on a relatively busy intersection of two streets in Plainfield, Indiana. Normally, the birds are chirping, the dogs are barking, and there are planes, trucks, cars, and motorcycles to give sound to the neighborhood. My, how this week's weather has changed all of that! *You know how muffled the world sounds when it's snowing? Even the tires on the roadways are quiet. Well, I'm here to tell you that ice storms are different! Monday afternoon and evening, we were getting rain which froze. Every twig and blade of glass was coated with almost a half-inch of ice. There were no cars on the road, no planes in the air, no dogs outside to bark. Even the birds were hiding from the storm. It was eerily quiet in a hollow sort of way. I stood outside my back door to look at the crystalline world. It was then I heard the not-so-quiet ice storm sounds. The encrusted branches rattled. Every few seconds, things would snap and pop. Every few minutes, a tree branch would hit the ground. (The last one I heard before I shut the door on the frightening outside noises sounded like a big one. There was a long craaaa-a-a-ack, rattle-rattle-rattle, thud.) *Then I came in to the INSIDE sounds. Since my house is built on a cement slab, there are no floor creaks. Once in awhile, one of the doors will squeak, but basically this is a quiet home. Not so in this storm! There were things hitting the wall air conditioner in my bedroom. Things hitting the roof. At one point, my lights flickered and I heard a BOOM. (The boom might have been one of my garbage cans that blew over in the wind. I'm not sure.) I heard things that I have never heard in this little house in the entire 19 years I've lived here. Through it all, I prayed and prayed that the power would stay on...and it did! (It did go out during the night for awhile, but was back on before I even noticed.) *At one point, I was feeling somewhat sorry for myself for having to endure the storm alone, worried about what would happen if something horrific occurred--like a tree falling on my house or car--but at the same time, I was grateful that the children weren't here for me to worry more. (They endured a blizzard where they are, but they have a fireplace, etc., for auxiliary heat.) *My sister reports that they have huge snow drifts in Springfield, IL. Guess they have finally dug out, but the winds persist. Schools here have been out for two days. I look for them to be out for tomorrow, too. We'll see. In the meantime, we aren't out of the woods yet. As long as there is ice on trees and wind to blow them around, we could still lose power. I'm crossing my fingers, crossing my body, saying my prayers, and hoping that the weather gods will finally give up. My trip to California--if it actually happens--will carve two weeks of pleasant temperatures out of the worst month of the year in the Midwest. I'm hoping to return to the "down" side of winter. Anyone with any romantic notion of how snug and cozy an ice storm is merely needs to TRY to walk to the mailbox or get the icicle of a car cleaned off. Good luck!