When working outside in an ice storm you can feel the ice pitting itself against your skin. Tiny little sharp pellets. No blood is drawn of course. Though no self respecting animal would be caught out in it, just the mad dogs and New Zealand woman.
I walk with a gloved hand up as though to shield myself from the sun but it is the blowing ice in my face I am trying to avoid (we have not seen sun in days) so I hunch into my farmers jacket shoulders, slightly turned shoulder to the wind – to present less of a target.
The ice storm raged for hours. The big trees (the poor old Dutch Elms that are rotting from the inside out due to their fatal fungal disease) lost many limbs. The ice gathered around the branches until they were so heavy that when a good gust of wind hit them they were sent sheeting to the ground. They are sharp, like chandelier glass and carve their names into the big branches and bushes as they smash through the garden. The noise as the branches fall is incredible like an avalanche of broken glass. I ducked my head and ran when I heard that sound of breaking glass above me. But the trees are between me and my barn so it is pretty hard to avoid these trees. One just has to hope for the best.
The high winds and rain and sleeting ice kept up the pressure for almost the whole day. I have no idea how many inches of icy rain we received but we are now way beyond soggy. The fields are lakes. The power went out and because we had to keep the sump pump working in the basement, which was flooding, we had to drag the generator through the muck and out to the Rat House and plug it into the Three Phase power thingy out there. The power was not out for long, about eight hours but noise of that generator was pressure all by itself.
Luckily no cows are allowed on the pastures so all the electric fences are turned off. Doubly lucky as a tree came down at the West Barn ACROSS TWO electric fences. There are a few other trees down too in the area – sad but firewood for next year.
So yesterday the animals just slept in their warm corners. Oblivious. (Though both Tahiti and Sheila are limping). We humans gave up the fight and retreated to the comfy chairs around the fire.
Last night was wild. We will look for any more damage when the sun comes up today.
I hear many of you had similar weather?
Let’s hope today is a lovely day.
Love celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
78 responses to “Exfoliating with ice”
Two times in my life I experienced that phenomenon too. And out we went, the whole familiy to the river, to the fields and into the woods. So beautiful. Nature can be so great. They called it “glass rain”. And my father took the best photographs ever then – oh I miss him when I think of the good times we had together…
Poor you. What a bad experience you have. Love to the mad dogs and the New Zealand woman. ❤ Take care…
“Glass rain” – perfect way to describe that sound. We had a terrific ice storm in our area in 1998. Days of freezing rain. Then, quite suddenly, the sun came out. That’s when we wondered what that sound was … we went out to find ‘glass’ raining down all around us – in the yard – in the woods – along the road. I walked out to our road and looked toward the village. People were coming out of their homes to listen to it. It was a day I’ll never forget. Hope your area somehow gets some sun to help with the clean up!
It is an amazing sight and sound.. c
Experienced my first ice storm a few years ago. It was beautiful in the end, but also so very destructive. We lost many trees, and so many others were damaged. Just last summer did we finally get all of them pruned and looking somewhat normal. And the sounds as the weight grew heavier and the branches bent more and more until finally…SNAP and BANG as 1/2 an entire tree gave way.
Yes – that is it exactly and as we walked this evening we saw even more trees with branches on the ground.. it is going to take a while to clean up! c
Mother Nature so doesn’t know what she is doing this year. It is so crazy everywhere in the world. Please be safe my sweet friends. XOXO – Bacon
You too Bacon! c
I’m happy to hear the tornado’s missed you once again. I know ice storms and they are treacherous too. Been in a few. We have another day of rain here then a week to 10 days of clear, cold weather. It will be nice to dry out a bit. Maybe that will head your way. I try to send the rain down to California as much as possible. They have been in dire need. The world has gone wonky and weather patterns are changing. Glad you had a generator and all your animals are safe. It seems always one extreme or the other.
Our winters are always pretty inpredictable – we are on the cusp of the real cold and a little further south and it is warm.. Weather patterns do change I think it is impossible to expect the same winter every year.. c
I hope you start to have much better weather soon!!!
Linda
well it is winter!! c
It ’tis!
I’m sorry that you’ve had to deal with all of this ice, which causes so much damage. Only snow here in southern Minnesota yesterday and today.
I would rather snow – I wonder what your winter will be like after two three really bad ones down your way. c
Oof, dangerous weather! What a shame that glass-shattering sound means trouble, because your description makes it sound so pretty. On weather report the other day announced, “Weather Watch, twenty fifteen!” with dramatic music and all. You know what we were expecting? Scattered showers. Not real rain, and not everywhere, just a 5 minute light sprinkle in a few lucky places, with overnight lows close to freezing but not quite. Weather Watch indeed. If icicle-laden branches started to fall here people would think it was the Apocalypse.
Oh dear scattered showers! did they come?
Not here. Hopefully in January and February we’ll get the wet weather they’ve been predicting.
It was nasty here yesterday, cold, rain/freezing rain/sleet/snow all mixed up and blowing a lot. Smoky didn’t want to be out much, did his business and happily came in, I didn’t want to be out either. It turned to all rain later and what ice had accumulated on the tree branches melted, which was just as well. Driving was difficult. We’re left with crusty snow and cold temperatures (34 F/1 C) but things don’t seem to be melting. Hope you don’t have much damage to clean up. Stay warm.
I hate driving in that kind of weather!
Glad you’re still standing and able to report on it all! Stay safe, m’dear. Flooding, ice, and tornadoes hereabouts in the last several days, but we Sparkses were utterly bypassed ourselves, despite the wreckage so close by us. Lucky, lucky us. May all of your farmy crew continue to escape injury or harm from the storms, and may the ice dissipate quickly and without further cruelty.
xo
We are all good, and the ice is gone.. things move quickly! c
Hello from Miss Ann. love your blog. My daughter lives in Chicago.She is a southern gal. But she has got use the snow,cold weather.But it took her awhile.my blog is bobbyanddasd2boysblog.wordpress.com you will see what it is like for the boys up north..Thank You
Thank you you – I will come and visit your blog it sounds interesting.. c
thank you this my new blog
I hope you are okay and that the weather calms down. There is very severe flooding in parts of the UK at the moment, and I saw news footage of tornadoes, flooding and snow in the States. Stay safe! There’s some crazy weather around — on my walk today, the birds were chirping and it felt like spring.
I saw a heron today! I called to her _ Go home! the cold is coming.. c
Oh, they are beautiful birds, aren’t they? I sometimes see them when I leave for work early in the morning…so graceful.
yes i just love them..
Ah, I wondered about you. We just got buckets of rain here. Luckily. I work for our electric cooperative. Which cooperative do you belong to?
Illini!? or something – we are at the end of the line though – literally – so we are last on the list but I don’t mind – we have it in hand.. c
Eastern Illini, I bet. Great people there!
It must be incredibly trying for the animals to be confined to barracks, and I shudder to think how miserable you must have been while trying to do your chores in those conditions. I should have made your hattie waterproof and re-inforced! It’s been a lovely day here, but we are settling in for a period of severe gales here and more monsoon rain on the poor beleaguered North of England.
Stay warm and dry as possible, and above all, stay safe
lots of love,
ViV xox
It is a calm day today – so all is safe and well! You are getting piles of rain out there.. c
Not today – maybe tomorrow when the wind hits us.
when we lived outside of Portland Oregon we had ice storms almost every year- and the sound of trees losing limbs and also falling over was like being in the middle of a war-like battle….very noisy.
Now we live in the mountains of Upper Northern California and after 4 years of drought we are experiencing a real winter! Snow and more snow up high in the mountains…and some around our home. Fortunately no ice storms.
Why are Tahiti and Sheila limping? Hope they are ok. Cheers and Happy New Year- stay warm and dry!
Hi Kathe, Sheila often limps in the winter – she has arthritis is the hip that was injured when she got in a nasty fight with a boar, but Tahiti has ripped one side of her hoof, into the quick and it is very hard to get any medications on it – she did this a few days ago so I am hoping it will heal in its own time.. c