Some of you may have heard about the crazy weather we've had in the PNW this past week. The week started with on-and-off snow, which changed over on Thursday to an ice storm, which brought down trees and power lines all over the region. For a while over 250,000 customers (individual and business) in Washington state were without electricity and/or heat. That included us. Our power came back on Friday night at about 10:30, after being off for about 40 hours.
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| The back garden early in the week (pretty, huh?) |
Fortunately we had a gas stove, which we could light with a match to cook and to warm up the kitchen area (it's an open plan house more or less, so kitchen area means a fairly large space). Some of that warmth made it up to the second floor of the house, but unfortunately, not into the bedroom. But I had a nice fluffy duvet and a husband to snuggle with in there at night.
And for entertainment I had my Kindle during the daylight hours, which was fully powered up with a couple of books that I hadn't read before.
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| During the ice storm, ornamental grasses and perennials in the front garden became encased in ice. |
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| A hanging basket in the front, which until the storm had kinda sorta been hanging onto life |
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| English laurel bent over by the heavy weight of the ice |
All day Friday, as things thawed, we could hear all around the snap, crackle, plop of huge chunks of ice, snow, limbs and small branches falling off trees. A lot of them landed in my back yard, littering the stream.
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| Douglas fir branches -- they smell like Christmas, but what a mess! |
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| The stream, running again now that the power's back on, but clogged with twigs and branches |
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| Another corner of the garden where branches fell in abundance |
And in the front, I lost a tree between us and the neighbors. Do you know that cutting off the leader trunk of a tree is called topping it? And in England, committing suicide is called "topping oneself?" Well, this tree topped itself.
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| Top half on the right -- bottom half, the rest of the trunk, on the left. |
This is the same tree that I lost a couple of limbs from earlier this year. So although technically the bottom half of the tree is still alive, it's truly not long for this world. I figure I now have a good excuse to replace it.
Well, if you don't hear from me in a while, it's because I'm on clean-up duty. I prefer a somewhat tidy garden.
In the meantime -- Hurry up, Spring!
