During our first winter back in the Bluegrass State, we had only electric heat. When what the Weather Channel called Winter Storm Hunter hit, we lost sparktricity . . . for 4½ days. My wife went to stay with our daughter, in Lexington, but I had to stay on the farm to take care of the critters.

The coldest it got in the house was 38º F!

But it sure wasn’t pleasant. While the water was still on, there was no hot water. There was just enough warm water that first morning to take a quick, sort-of OK shower, but that was it.

Our house is an eastern Kentucky fixer-upper, and the kitchen was the first thing to be redone. Mrs Pico wanted a gas range, and that was planned all along. We knew our electric water heater was near the end of its service life, so we planned on replacing that with gas as well. Then, remembering the unheated house, we decided to add a gas fireplace as well. The fan won’t work without electricity, and while the range top will work, the oven will not.

So, will we lose power again?

It’s a little hard to see the county lines, in the red area, but that’s where we are, kind of in between the Berea and Jackson city names.

At any rate, what my, sadly, late, best friend used to call the Lexington Herald-Liberal is telling me that we’re due for another ice storm. The forecast is a bit iffy: we could get snow as well as freezing rain, probably light tomorrow morning but getting worst Wednesday afternoon.

Alas! Mrs Pico has to work Thursday and Friday, and as a hospital nurse there’s no ‘work from home’ for her. My F-150 does have four-wheel drive, but four-wheel drive works far better in snow than it does on ice; nothing works well on ice. The county has pretreated the road, and while we live in relatively flat river-bottom farmland, there are a couple of not-nice places on the way to the hospital.

At any rate, I have asked William Teach of The Pirate’s Cove to watch this site, in case I’m out of communication for a few days.