ICE STORMS

Something else we've had since I've been away is two big ice storms. The first one left about a quarter inch of ice on pretty much everything around. It also made trying to walk a chore and it made driving pretty much impossible at one point.

If you're wondering why these first pictures are in black and white that was pretty much the way I saw it the first day with a completely gray sky. The color in the pictures was so drab it wasn't even worth using. Black and white seems to bring something more out in a picture anyway.

The second storm that came through was much bigger than the first. A full half inch of ice coated the trees and the weight was just too much for many of them. The sound of limbs snapping could be heard all over as the ice broke them like twigs. Pine trees were especially damaged by the weight of the ice. Despite the damage, however, it did bring a beauty to everything. When the sun eventually came out the next day trees, grass, weeds, everything glistened like diamonds in the sun. The entire area sparkled as the bounced off the frozen water. It didn't go away real soon either. With temperatures diving down to 16 degrees and not getting above freezing the next day the sparkling hung around for adventurous people like me to enjoy. Oh....I didn't go hiking in it either. I had thoughts of a big tree weighted down with ice coming down and landing on my head. I know I've got a hard head but it do have its limitations.

I did leave one picture in color for you. This is our front yard where we have our security light. This scene gave me a strange feeling. There were no stars or moon because of the clouds. The ice here, however, had a strange look to it with the light bouncing off of it. In once sense it looks to be like water on an ocean. In another sense it looks like you could walk on the ice and not break through. You would be surprise, though, how much weight it would hold. Some places I walked in the next morning actually held me up. Needless to say our dog did a lot of slipping and sliding on it.

It took about 3 days for the ice to finally begin melting. It still wasn't completely safe to be under the trees even then because the ice came crashing to the ground as it broke away from the trees. I didn't take the chance of looking up for fear of having my eye poked out.