Ice aftermath

Dawn - aftermath

All is calm.  Today dawns with clear skies, no wind and single digit temps.  I bundled up and swept away  3" of snow out to the birdfeeder.  The exposed path is not blacktop but inches of ice and must be negotiated with great care.  According to the forecast we won't get above freezing in the near future so melt is yet to come.  (There are glaciers in all my gutters, nothing I want to melt quickly anyway else water can back up under the shingles).

At one point 55,000 Stark county residents were without power.  Today  27,000 are still in the dark.  Luckily neither Mom nor I lost power.  You can deal with a lot if you have heat and lots of hot coffee!

From my windows I used binoculars and saw lots of tree carnage within range.  I was able to identify some of the big crashes I heard that horrible night.  It doesn't appear that any whole trees came down, but some limbs that broke off are as big as trees!

Footing is treacherous what with the layers now on the ground: snow, ice, snow, so I didn't wander around to get more damage pics.  I did snap this of one of my broken rhododendrons.

ice victim - broken rhody

Only one other rhody suffered damage - outside my bedroom window, losing a branch.  This rhody, however, had shaded my sitting area in the 'morning' garden.  There won't be any shade there this year. :-(

The sun is shining brightly.  Now it's all about cleanup.  And here at the gardens that can wait until Spring.

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