Why Paddy's not at work today ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

So you've all heard about the ice storm sheathing central Illinois (and a lot of other places) in solid H2O.  (Thanks for the outage announcement, janetmiles.)  For some reason I was reminded of a favorite Irish song, "Why Paddy's Not at Work Today," which details a series of horrible accidents.  Here, it only took nature deciding to dress up in full-plate mail...


This is the view southwest from our house, shooting downward through one of Doug's office windows.  You can see some trees and the south hedge clad in ice.  Depending on what part of yard you check, the coating is mostly 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick.  Some areas have little coating but most have quite a bit.  There are small branches down but so far no trees, and hopefully the ice will melt off before anything shatters.


Here I'm shooting almost level through Doug's other window, looking west.  Those are small branches coated in ice.


Here is a sycamore seed ball next to an icicle.This and the remaining pictures are shot looking eastward over our roof, from a window atop the stairs.


This is a glazed sycamore leaf. 


Most of the time, an ice storm leaves fairly smooth coatings, except for icicles on eaves and such.  This one, for some reason, produced a lot of small icicles everywhere.  Here is a picture of ice fringe on the sycamore tree.


So, that's where went with today's intended poetry fishbowl.  I'll have to reschedule that, probably for Tuesday 8.  The net connection did come back in late afternoon, too late to salvage the planned activities.  (Given previous experience, I suspect that connection may be spitty for the next day or two.)  Instead I've spent most of the day writing fiction, and we watched a movie over supper .

Comments

[eseme]

Oh my! No wonder you could not run the Fishbowl.

Ice storms are terrible. We went through one my senior year of high school. The trees! The suffering was terrible. You could still see signs of it driving up the highways for years after.

Yes...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

We have been lucky so far, actually, and I hope that continues. Part of a day without net, a power blink, some small branches down, and a missed grocery trip -- that's minor inconvenience for a storm sheathing the world in over 1/4" of ice. I just hope our luck holds until the ice melts safely away.

Today we went out to try freeing the car, with only partial success. I saw that some of the fallen twigs had 3/4" cladding in places. I think the tops of the trees got more than the lower branches. But I did manage to put fresh bird seed out for the wildlife. Earlier they were all scrabbling around trying to get through the ice to find food. The only things left accessible had been the suet cakes.

Re: Yes...

[eseme]

Yeah, it was about an inch of ice, all those years ago. The sound of branches cracking apart and hitting the ground is one I wish I didn't recognize. At one point people were advised not to go outside without protective headgear, unless they were in a very open area.

But Maine is very forested - we had a lot of trees to fall. The ones that bent, and are still, even over a decade later, still curved were hard to look at. It looked painful. Those poor birches.

I hope this current storm is not as bad.

I was glad to read that you have a woodstove. Ours kept us warm for a few days without power.

Re: Yes...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>>Yeah, it was about an inch of ice, all those years ago.<<

*nod* An inch is bad news.

>> The sound of branches cracking apart and hitting the ground is one I wish I didn't recognize. <<

As long as the cladding isn't too thick, I like the song and chime of ice. You can tell from the sound, in fact, roughly how dangerous it is. When it stops sounding like windchimes and starts sounding like gunshots, that's trouble.

>>But Maine is very forested - we had a lot of trees to fall. The ones that bent, and are still, even over a decade later, still curved were hard to look at. It looked painful. <<

Where I live is mostly farmland reclaimed from swamp or prairie, scattered with upland forest. Our yard has quite a number of trees, though -- you've seen the pictures. With the ice storms here, trees usually either bend (and straighten back up when the ice melts) or just plain break. There are branches touching the ground now that will probably be 8-10 feet in the air later. Of course the sycamore is raining twigs and small branches like there's no tomorrow, but it's sort of designed to do that. It sheds in the rain, let alone ice.

>>I was glad to read that you have a woodstove. Ours kept us warm for a few days without power.<<

Sooth. I am very fond of our woodstove. I like not having to rely wholly on modern technology.