Nicole Caulfield Fine Art

I started this on Thursday. I'm actually a bit further along than this, but I didn't get another shot of it before I left the studio.

On Friday, the kids around here had a snow day, which means for me I'm home with my kids and not at the studio. It wasn't a snow day as much as it was an ice day. Amazingly Keene was spared the ice and the skies merely dumped a flavor-free slushy over the town. Right outside of Keene, and most of New Hampshire, however have such complete ice issues that the governor actually declared it a state of emergency, at least half of NH is still without power, and driving outside of town is almost impossible.

We actually hadn't known how bad it was until we tried to drive from Keene to Merrimack, NH today for a family Christmas party and the drive on Rt 101 was like a big obstacle course. There were trees and power lines down the whole way and not enough police to help when it was down to one lane for both directions. At first we thought it was fun and the whole family was pointing out spectacles of ice. It felt like some kind of Disney Christmas park we were driving through, but then after going around one tree limb after another we decided to turn back home. We could get to the party ok, but since it gets dark before 5 pm we would be driving this obstacle course in the dark on the way home, and that didn't sound like too much fun. I've seen many an ice storm before in Illinois where I grew up, but never here in New Hampshire where the trees are HUGE and so close to the road.