Ice - ing

Oh boy... Old Man Winter stopped in for a visit and boy is he ever cranky! He left a BIG mess behind.


I went to bed last night knowing there was an ice storm warning, we already had some snow on the ground but it was supposed to warm up just enough for a freezing rain. Being from California, 'weather' here scares me at times. We've had the power go out here before when it's been cold and it can get quite uncomfortable. I was hoping the weather folks were being overly cautious. I guess what really scared me is when I received an email from the Red Cross asking for volunteers to be ready to report. We have weather warnings here of many different flavors depending on the time of year - I had never received a notification from the Red Cross to be ready.


So, I got up early - before sunrise. There were odd sounds coming from outside as well as from the house itself - it sounded as though is was moaning. I peeked out the windows, and even in the dark I could see the outline of the tree limbs - all hanging quite a bit lower than expected.


Nature is an amazing and scary thing. Everything encased in ice is incredibly beautiful. I could hardly wait for the sun to rise.


We have very large, old trees in both the front and back yards - it makes for a beautiful and rather nerve racking experience when I stand outside and listen to the sounds... the wind blowing through the ice covered limbs, straining under the weight of the ice, then cracking and sometimes falling to the ground with a thud.



We had the power go out and come back on several times and I'm thankful that it stayed on - so far anyway.



We lost many tree limbs and there are 2 trees that we may not be able to save (pictured directly above and below). The clean up should keep us busy for a good bit of time.



I ended up calling the local policy/fire department because of this one tree - it looks like it split from the top and fell forward toward the street. Right on top of the line that runs between the light posts. The posts are now leaning toward one another and I hope they don't collapse. Can you see the line running through the middle of the tree in the above photo?



I figure the city/county must be busy, it's been quite a few hours since we called and they still have not made it out here.


Everything is still encrusted in ice - it never did warm up enough to melt much. It'll be interesting to see what tomorrow holds.


For those of you that have never seen or been in an ice storm - these photos might look fairly innocuous. To give you an idea of just what happens - I found a photo I snapped last winter of one side of the house (below) see how pretty a nice bit of snow looks?


Now here you can see what ice accumulation does to the very same trees. Click on each to get the enlarged view.


Here are some other shots from around the house...


This is a giant wasp nest - it usually sits quite high in the tree, but was brought down to eye level with the weight of the ice, so I was able to get a decent shot of it.

The clothesline


The top of a flower pot holder


Little Japanese Maple


And my neighbors yard