Ice Storm

We haven't had much winter weather this year until last night. Normally we'd have snow in late November or early December. Occasionally we've had snow as early as Halloween that stayed all winter. So far this winter I've shoveled once and it wasn't really necessary then, only an inch and a half. Last night and this morning the weather was more like we'd expect in January, freezing rain followed by snow. All the schools were closed because of a half inch of ice on everything but when the snow arrived it was pretty.

The freezing rain made a lot of folks around here nervous though, a kind of PTSD from the ice storm of '98, five days of freezing rain that took out the power across Northern NY, New England and Quebec for anywhere from a week to a month or more. We were lucky and had our power back after only 7 days. Some communities in Quebec were without power for nearly 6 weeks.

I didn't take many photos back then. When I left for work in the morning it was dark and when I got home at night it was getting dark. When I wasn't working we were spending our time surviving, melting snow on the wood stove for water, living by candlelight, staying warm. Today I could afford the time to admire the ice on the trees. I'm retired so I had nowhere to go. The photo is from my side yard looking back at a neighbor's shed.