The ice storm of 2014 was my introduction to a real Chester County winter where life stands still and the pause button is hit.

The ice storm created many beautiful tableaux to photograph, but it was treacherous and I’ll admit it was a pretty hard 10 days after that storm.

I remember it was snowy leading up to February 2014. See above for a photo I took on Sugartown Road around February 3rd that year.

When we woke up the morning after the ice storm, it was quiet and we had no power anywhere and like many of my neighbors we had a tree on part of our house. It felt claustrophobic and cold at times because the tree was on top of us until Belfor and our arborist at the time could get to us.

Everyone pretty much had debris on their homes unless they were in a wide open space with no trees immediately around.

That photo is one I took of our arborist at the time on top of the giant beech that half fell on our house. It could have been much worse than it was and it was bad enough. But we didn’t lose our home and I remember news reports during that storm where people’s homes were crushed by falling trees loaded with ice.

By the time we were into the week mark without power it was a little like Little House on the Prairie around here. You take a lot of things for granted when you don’t have power.

One of the things I remember most from that time is how generous neighbors were with one another. Where I live there was one exception. Someone at the end of our road who had a full house generator to the best of my knowledge never invited anyone in even to warm up with a hot cup of tea or coffee. The rest of us were roughing it with out generators for the most part.

We were lucky because we have a woodstove and our house is small enough that it did not get as cold as it could have been.

Cheers went up when the Calvary (PECO) got to us to restore power. My husband decided during that storm I was too much of a “city girl.”

But there were moments after that ice storm that were just breathtaking in the majesty of Mother Nature as the shot I got one morning after the storm.

Cheers to 2020.