Pick Up Sticks

The blizzards and ice storms in Iowa were brutal this year. Janice gave us updates that went from scary to hard-to-imagine. From Mike finding his way home at 5am in a blizzard, or the January ice storm, to the 10 foot drifts down the road the recounts reminded me of stories I've read about growing up in a mid-western winter. There were pictures of Warren looking at the sliding glass door obliterated by snow in the first blizzard and snuggled in bed with daddy when there was no reason to get up for work. The snow storms were bad, but the ice storm was worse.


I'm in Iowa now and I have a new appreciation for the devastation the ice storm caused. The yard is still littered with branches. Janice compares it to the Florida hurricanes of '04 which is a good comparison. Everywhere you look the trees have lost their tops. Trunks have been split. The trees show the scars of dismemberment where large branches have broken off. The graceful rounded tops of the trees have been altered to a blunt cut across the top. The towns have been busy with cleanup, but those who live in the country must deal with the mess on their own. Now that the snows have melted the work can be done, but it is also time for the farmers to get busy in the fields.


Mike has obviously been busy here. There are several 'burn sites' where he has burned the debris in the front yard. But the back yard and the wooded area still show the effects. Warren looks forward to the work and any reason to get outside. "Pick - Up - Sticks?" he asks in his little 2 year-old voice. And we do. A game I remember playing as a child,with long toothpick sized colored sticks, is a big grown up chore here. But in this game the reward comes if you put a stick ON the pile. Some day when this little boy is older, maybe I'll teach him the other version.