Major Winter Storm

Right now, we just emerged from the end of a major winter storm. It began with rain Monday night, which froze into a very thick layer through the night. It turned into sleet on Tuesday, and didn’t let up the whole day. The high pitched sound of ice pellets hitting icy windows was painfully annoying, and I couldn’t wait for it to end. In addition, ice had given our windows an opaque glaze treatment, and I never realized how much I depend on looking outside through the day. Not being able to see out drove me batty!  This, coupled with the unceasing ice pellets was psychological torture! The day seemed to last forever.

I woke up yesterday morning to see the havoc the ice had wreaked on the trees. It seems like a hurricane blew through and then suddenly froze. Top branches of large trees are leaning to touch the ground. Strong limbs hang from trunks like limp noodles. Every tree has branches on the ground, and splintered boughs are everywhere. I saw a few that look like they went through a paper shredder! I doubt the city will look the same for quite a few summers.

Here are some examples of the type of damage around:

On top of the ice came six inches of snow, weighing things down even more and causing us to lose power for about three hours this morning. Our formerly beautiful trees now look like this:

 

Our neighbors bushes:

On a brighter note, our spring chickens have arrived! We chose this week of all weeks for them to come when we ordered them in November. I lost two nights of sleep worrying that the plane bringing them from Connecticut wouldn’t make it to the airport through the storm, and they would be trapped halfway here in their box. Fortunately they made it here safe, alive and peeping. Pictures coming soon!