Ice Ice Ice Baby
Yesterday morning started like any other Sunday morning. I got up around 0830 and looked outside only to see the world covered in anywhere from ¼ to a ½ inch of ice and it was still raining and freezing on contact. So I putzed around for a bit before sitting down on the couch, turning the laptop on, checking my email and whatnot. It was a little past 0900 when I heard the first, “CRASH”, outside. It was so loud that I jumped up from where I was sitting thinking that something just fell on a house. I look out the bay window only to see a large portion of a large oak tree in the middle of the road. I call my neighbor across the street Donna whose tree it is and while on the phone with her two ignorant minivan drivers come down the road and turned and drove right through my neighbor’s yard to go around the debris. Ignorant fuckers! So I get dressed, yes I was in sweats and a t-shirt, and go outside to help move it but by the time I got outside a guy in a pickup truck had pulled up, got out and tied a rope around the branch and pulled it over to in front of my house thus making a lane so as to open the road. While out there I call the township to let them know what happened and that we got the road open. No sooner than I hang up the phone a pine tree snaps in half in another neighbor’s back yard. CRASH!!! While my neighbor Steve and I are picking up wood off the street we hear trees snapping and breaking just about every ten minutes or so. Of course no sooner than I go back inside the cop shows up and is trying to move the wood off the road. I go back out to help him and he tells me the whole county has trees down and we are one of a very few areas still with power. While talking to him we hear another very loud CRASH. We both laugh and I wish him a good day. He drives around the corner and stops. I walked over to the corner only to see a huge maple tree down and across the street. As I turned to walk home another chunk of the big oak tree comes crashing down missing Donnas VW by less than a foot. Through all this not one house was hit nor one car crunched. Amazing!
I finally decided to venture out to the local 7/11 around noonish and it took me 15 minutes to dig through and then chip the ice off my car. As I drove the 10 blocks or so to the store it was a winter wonderland of arboreal destruction. Branches and whole trees down everywhere. If you look closely at the picture above you’ll see my neighbor’s fence broken about half way down their yard.
If you have artic weather now, we should have it next week! It takes a week to cross the pond.
So we will have a White Christmas then!
Ah but don’t the trees look pretty!
You should go over to Kate’s at Because I Said So . . she’s got bigger icicles and snow to boot! Nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there!
That is some freezy cold icy weather you’re having there, Big B! Do you get to keep any of the wood for your next winter’s fire?
GM, I most certainly do wish you a White Christmas.
Technogirly, As scary as it was on Sunday…..Yea, it was pretty.
AbVan, Yes!! I have a big pile of wood that needs cut up and hauled out back sitting in my front yard.
What I didn’t say in the post is that the weather was really odd in that the freezing rain did not affect the roads or sidewalks. Go look at the pic I posted and notice that there is no ice on my neighbors driveway but his car and tress are coated. My sidewalks were just wet but the grass, shrubs, trees and just about everything else had a rather thick coating of ice on it. Most all day it was raining but on contact the rain froze solid except on the roads and sidewalks. I don’t get it but that’s the way it was.
Whoa dude, that sounds intense. What was so different about the snow this year that didn’t make the trees snap last year?
Nice roasty fire for you and the neighbours for the winter though! Sucks about that guy’s garden. Paint ball guns come in handy in those situations.
Yeah, this cold-weather-ice-up-to-your-ass things just bites. It seems to have eased up to manageable proportions by now, but let’s not engage my husband in a talk about how he got his brand new 4×4 Doge Ram stuck in the front yard, OK? It’s a sensitive topic.
Hey, speaking of which, I just memed you.
HA! The things I don’t miss about the Northeast US…. But if it makes you feel better, its coldhere right now….its a very nippy 21C.
I’m going out back to get a wheelbarrel full of wood then I’m going to build a fire in the fireplace then I’m going to watch a movie while the fire crackles and pops and warms my toes. I’ve got a big bag of homemade Christmas cookies. Oh, better yet, maybe I’ll order a pizza and save the cookies for breakfast tomorrow.
