Ice Storm 2013

This was actually the second ice storm of the winter season. The first storm was sleet with the snow following close behind, but the roads froze into an icy mess. Schools were out for days because the school buses couldn't navigate the neighborhood streets.

This ice storm was a little different. It was freezing rain, which meant it rained but froze on all the exposed surfaces. Luckily the ground temperature was still warm so the road were just wet, until they freeze-dried over night.

Though ice-coated trees are beautiful they pose hazards, namely branches breaking when the weight becomes too much for the tree.

The pretty . . .

Our wrought iron table had about 1/3 inch of ice on it.

 



My spider was seriously coated. . . I should have trimmed my roses back before the storm. Oops.

Harry Lauder's walking stick tree

A wee bit of sunshine peeked through the grayness.

Miniature Heavenly bamboo bushes. There are six small ones here, but they had fused together into one mass.

 

And the not so pretty . . .

Our sad, sad river birch. If the fireplace wasn't there, I think we would have lost this trunk.

Pin Oak was nearly touching the ground, but the hubby trimmed some branches off to lighten the load.

Another view of the river birch.

Another view of the pin oak.

The other oak is to the left and we lost numerous branches on this one.

 

The loblolly pines in the back were the worst hit as the 2007 ice storm had done previous damage to their limbs. The piles of green on the ground on the far side of the pool are the broken branches.

My hubs trimmed some of the low branches to ease the weight on the trees. We'll still have to climb the trees to trim the branches that broke high up in the tree.

As soon as the ice melts, I know what we'll be doing. Yay! . . . not.

Later, Peeps!