More Ice - February 12, 2014

As if the last ice storm wasn't enough, we had another on February 12th. It was one of the worst I've ever seen down here.

Here is a picture of our front willow tree. It is a 15-20 foot tall tree which is bent under the weight of ice here. The top is actually touching the ground. To the left you can see branches from the Loblolly pines that iced, froze and broke off.

Front Willow

We lost power for 36 hours. It was very cold with the temps going between 20 and 35 degrees F. Luckily we had a generator and a wood burning fireplace. That didn't cut it too well, but it was something. We need to get a bit more off-grid or get a few more items to help us out. We lose power a lot, here.

Here is a pic of my beautiful Eywa-ish willow in the back yard. It did not fare too well, as you'll see.

Back Yard Willow

She lost three large branches. You can see two of the broken ones really well here. I need to get up there and cut them off. She bounced back pretty well, but she'll need a good pruning after this.

One thing that was really weird was it was SO quiet. We had no noise except for the snapping and breaking off of tree limbs. It sounded like small grenades going off everywhere. It was really loud when a whole pine would break in half and crash to the ground. We're talking 10" and larger pines. Luckily they were nowhere near a building.

Here is a shot of what happened behind our barn. The fence is about 4-5 feet from the barn. It's a property boundary fence. A whole lot of large branches fell as you can see the whole way to the top of the picture. The fence, which is the whole way around our property, is dented everywhere. The smaller branches fell with such weight and force that it crushed the fence in a lot of places the whole way around. We were fortunate nothing came down on our house.

Limbs Behind the Barn

Here's a decent shot of what went on in the Back 40.

Limbs in the Back 40

Limbs just kept breaking off and breaking off. It wasn't safe to go outside while this was going on. You never knew which tree would let go next! It looked like a bunch of squirrels went crazy back there.

 Here's what happened behind our driveway. The saplings on the other side of the fence weighed down little by little with ice. Our one shed seemed to disappear little by little as the trees bent. We watched them lean under the weight. There wasn't much to do other than stand at the windows, watch and listen.

Behind Driveway

At least I had a few things I could do while I waited for electricity. I hemmed pants and worked on my quilting that I put aside. If this wouldn't have happened, I wouldn't have gotten that stuff done. There is something good to be said for things which make you slow down, sit back and take it easy.

I've been watching the weather up North on the news stations. I can feel for them because I used to live there. However, this has been the worst for them in years. My stepson told us they're expecting another storm in DuBois. They've had it pretty bad.

Recently, our weather has been nice...50's to 70's. Now it looks like we're in for another cold snap this coming week. Oh boy!

I hope all of you are warm and safe during this winter weather.

Take care.