...blink...blink...

   Last evening around 8:20pm I was hankered down next to the glowing wood stove with a new book, all comfy and warm, Jeff was stretched out on his bed, Fanny was snoring in the power chair and Zoey was curled up on the loveseat when every thing went quiet and black.  The power was out!  I stood up and checked Wally's house...totally dark down there...and the highway...just blackness.  It took me a couple of minutes to slowly edge my way to the kitchen trying not to trip over any of the dog toys on the floor.  Once I got to the kitchen I continued my slow progress to the door...still just blackness...even the street light on the highway was out!  I managed to feel my way to the hall and got the small penlight we keep under the thermostat.  Once I turned that on I could walk at a normal speed back to the kitchen and look for the new flashlight Jeff's sister Sherry had given him for Christmas.  It's a small but powerful  tactical collapsible lantern (the commercial says you can see the beam for a mile!) and it does makes it seems as if the lights were on. The fire really needed more wood but since the fan wasn't working I didn't want to put any in.  I just put my book away and snuggled in my chair with an afghan. 
   I figured the power outage was caused by the ice jam under the Rte. 5 bridge over the West Canada Creek.  Telephone, cable and electrical lines all go thru conduits along the underside of that bridge and the ice jams probably had caused a problem.  The ice jam was also causing flooding along the creek.  You'd think someone would just break up the ice the way they do in other places (Ilion and Whitesboro come to mind). 
   After about half an hour the power came back on and I put more wood in the stove.  The furnace kicked on and Jeff got up and asked if I ever baked the frozen pizza I had bought.  Between the wood fire, the furnace and the oven the house warmed up quickly and I went back to reading my book.  I read for a couple of hours and ended up going to bed around midnight.  Around 1:30am the power cut out again...but this time for just 10-15 minutes...just enough time to make everything that blinks when the power is cut start blinking! 
   This was the 2nd time this month that we had a middle of the night power outage...both during a relative 'warm spell' so the ice jams had to have something to do with it.  And you just don't realize how dark it is at night until you have a power outage out here in the 'little woods'.