Ice Storm...Continued

These frozen clusters of pine needles shattered into two and three inch-long sections per needle when they came down and hit the ground spraying across the sidewalk.  They looked more like broken glass than anything organic.  You should click on this picture and take a good look.  I have never seen anything like this.

Getting out and about today, I was appalled at the number of white pine of any size which have been re-sculpted. Mostly white pine were hit hardest, but I also saw branches of oaks, maples and box elders that had also suffered.

The ice makes for some beautiful picture opportunities.

This is a climbing rose that is not supposed to survive in central Wisconsin. It is 'Eden', also sold as Pierre de Ronsard.  Hopefully, this is not the year all the rose reads all that literature!  This rose's bloom is featured in the header of my blog.

Isn't my seedling art all happy and spring-like?

 

My topiaried balsam spruce, it Frasier neighbors are about 20' tall.  I keep this poor guy chopped to a demure 7' tall to build some depth at the end of the alley border.

Our 2011 Labor Day Weekend Storm took out a lot of the trees in poor conditions, particularly those anywhere near power lines were removed by the power company restoring power over the next couple weeks.  That next spring they also made a trip through the area and followed up on anything in areas that had not suffered damage or interrupted power.

I started to think about how we have had three bad April ice storms in the last four years.

When I came home tonight I could see two blocks away, from Main Street, the top of my pine where I left it this morning.  Mother Nature and Father Physics had not seen fit to redecorate in my absence.  As I sat a safe distance from my pine (at my mailbox) and in the safety of my car watching it sway, it brought to mind the beginning of the "Jabberwocky". 

"Twas brillig, and the slithy toe-rags
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe."

Particularly the gyre and gimbling in the wabe part because gyring and gimbling describes that pine's top to a tee.  If there is anyplace the borogoves are all mimsy, it's central Wisconsin.

I was heartened by pockets of ice-free trees on my seven mile drive home this afternoon.  A lot of the village trees are presently free of ice.  My poor little birch seen tipped to the ground were surprisingly upright, as if the last 24-hours had not brought them literally to their knees begging the Ice Princess for their very lives.  That clump birch was  was upright and cheery, unlike the young birch trio on Main Street that appears to have lost its Tenor.  Most of the trees and shrubs in my yard have stopped their raths outgrabe.

I can only hope.

I did see the northeast side of the white pine up at the very top looked to still be covered in ice like something out of "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Warlock."  I also noted, should it break free, it will most likely come down on the street, probably taking out the electricity line, too (but missing my house by probably a safe margin, but that could depend on the wind).

Today, I was talking to some students, one whose parents made them sleep in different rooms from normal toward the back of their house and away from a tree also precariously perched over their house last night.  Confirming the student's tree was also a white pine, I asked if the student's parents were now considering removal.  They were, but they, like me had considerable angst over the decision.

I commiserated explaining how my pine and house had been together for about 150 year; how I have seen this picture of my house in like 1901 with this spindly 6' pine out in front and how whoever planted it could hardly image the 100' monster it is today.

(To this next part, I can only give you warning about how young teenagers actually are...)

Another student, listening in on the conversation, "You have a picture of your tree and house in 1901?  How old are you?"

(Duh!)

"Yes, child, and I took it with my digital camera in my iPhone and posted it to FaceBook."

Teenagers.

So young.

May the Jabberwockies and frumious Bandersnatches stay far from your gardens.

Have a frabjous day!