I received an email from my cousin last week, who lives in Fitchburg Massachusetts. This came after the terrible snow storm that swept through and knocked out all the utilities and shut down almost the entire city. Here are parts of my cousin's letter:

Just an update as to our lives these days. Last Thursday at 8:30pm the power went out due to an ice storm we were having, and it continues to be out until MAYBE this coming Friday -- the electric company isn't sure. It depends on two snow storms that are about to hit us. One storm is coming in this Friday and dropping 6+ inches of snow, the other one is coming next Monday and they are calling it a severe Nor'easter. Currently, since last Thursday, we have no power, no heat, and EVERYTHING in both freezers and both refrigerators is gone. I had a bag of blueberries in the fridge downstairs that I was going to use for a blueberry cobbler, but they ended up fermenting and exploded in the fridge, so I'll have to clean that mess up. We have an ice chest that we keep bags of ice in, our milk, soda, or bottles of water. It was 28 degrees inside the house, and 10 degrees outside. Everything had an inch or more of ice on it, and when the worst hit last Friday night, you could hear the snap of branches or trees for miles around as they broke off or fell over and hit other things. It was also like the 4th of July as we watched the electric transformers at the bottom of our hill explode. Thank goodness for the fireplace which is certainly getting a work-out. We're just about out of seasoned wood from our pile under the deck, so we've been cutting up the limbs outside and trying to mix the green wood with the seasoned wood. So far so good. We borrowed [our children's] camp stove so we could heat water to at least take a "spit" bath and wash our hair. Our campstove made a lovely home for a bunch of field mice, and we had to throw it out.There are no generators to be had in the whole state. If you want to travel to Connecticut you could get one. Rhode Island is out, as well as New Hampshire. There are NO "D" batteries to be had anywhere -- grocery stores, hardware stores. We wanted to at least listen to our radio, but that didn't happen. I got the last 2 bags of ice that Hannaford's grocery store had. All cold lunch meats, yogurts, butter, etc. have been removed from the shelves in all stores. Our large cherry tree in the front yard was toppled over because of the heaviness of the ice. Our big arborvite (sp) at the corner of the house cracked and fell over. Our maple tree at the front of the driveway split in half and broke. Big branches in the back yard cracked and fell pulling down my clothes line. All the Chinese hedge trees we had across the side of our yard have broken so they will have to come up in the spring. Three of them have fallen on top of my lilac bushes. Massachusetts, NH, and Maine have been declared disaster areas. We have utility trucks from as far away as Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Ohio, and we also have the National Guard helping to clear away the debris. We have been able to go to work every day by carefully maneuvering down the hill and under wires that are hanging down. It looks like a war zone. There's about 250,000 people still without power. And now another 2 storms loom on the horizon. [We] have been going out to breakfast and meeting for supper every night. It's fun, in that I don't have to do dishes or clean the kitchen, but it's getting expensive... Anyways, we're OK. The dogs are OK, but I'm so very tired of the cold, and it's really starting to get to me. We keep telling ourselves that we're not alone in this disaster. We've been taking our cell phones out to the vehicles every night and plugging them into the charger - mine in the car, his in the truck - so they'll be ready to go the next day because we have no phone service.Oh well, this is life in the Northeast!! Just wanted you to know we're hanging in there.

When I spoke to my cousin this morning, she was standing in a foot of new snow and expected to get another 12-18 inches today. They have obtained a generator and now have heat in part of the house. She was able to have her first shower in 10 days, which was wonderful, as you can imagine!

I remember this kind of weather from when we lived back East. There was an awful winter storm in the early 70s that snowed us in completely. There were snow drifts up over the edge of the roof on our two-story house. We had to shovel a path through six foot snow just to get to the chicken house to feed our hens and collect the eggs. The dog used to run out onto the back porch and bound out into the snow, completely disappearing. My father and brother walked four miles into town to buy groceries one morning, and brought them back in a backpack in the afternoon. It was a freezing, blowing snow. When I think of the bravery of my father, I wonder how many of us would do that for our families nowadays.

It all is part of the New England soul--surviving extreme cold and snow, being prepared to be without food, water, and electricity, and still loving it because it's one of the most beautiful places on earth. I wish I were there.

Just not this week.