An Icy Weekend

Last weekend, we had some winter weather. No snow this time around, but there was a bit of ice. Fortunately, it was nothing like the ice storm that we got back in 1994, because everyone who was around back then remembers that very well.

Schools and lots of businesses were closed on Friday, largely in anticipation of the bad weather, because most of the closures were decided upon on Thursday before the weather even arrived. Several things were cancelled on Saturday as well. And then more freezing rain came through early Sunday morning, which added a little more ice on things.

Here are a few photos from Sunday afternoon showing some of the ice:

If you didn’t know, ice really takes a toll on evergreen trees, such as this pine tree in our front yard. If you don’t recognize it, you can see how the tree normally looks in this photo from a few weeks ago. But don’t worry - usually the tree branches stand back up as normal once the ice melts, unless the ice was heavy enough to break the branch. We did have a couple of broken branches in some of our other pine trees, but not this one.

Here is another example of ice on evergreen trees. These cedar trees usually stand straight and tall, looking like Christmas trees. But ice makes them bend over and look really sad. And as with the pine tree above, these trees are back to normal now, even though they look really bad here.

Ice also covered the bushes around the house, including this azalea. In a way, everything looks pretty cool when it is covered with ice, even though you wonder how good it is for the plants to be that cold. But they always put on new growth the next year, so it doesn’t do any permanent damage.

This last view is a look out across the front yard. I do like how the ice makes all of the dead tree branches look white instead of their usual brown, giving a different appearance to what we are normally used to seeing. Of course, this view would probably look even more like a standard winter scene if the ground were covered in white snow, too. But we can’t exactly order up the weather, so we just take what we can get.

Ice storms always bring the worry of tree branches breaking off and knocking down power lines. Our power did go out on Friday, but fortunately it was only off for about an hour or so. It came back on just as I was going to put on more clothes to try to stay warm, because it was starting to feel colder inside the house. Others in our county had some longer outages on Sunday from the second round, but our power stayed on during that time.

Ice looks nice in photos, but I’m glad we don’t get it more often!

Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever; wisdom and power are his. He changes times and seasons; he deposes kings and raises up others. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning. - Daniel 2:20-21

About each photo:
A single RAW exposure, processed in Adobe Lightroom. Read more about the photo software and gear I use at the camera gear page.
Camera: Canon EOS 60D
Lens: Canon 28-105mm