A New View

Our view is a bit more open now. You can see the snapped-off trees and limbs.

The Morning After

When I woke up the next morning and could see the sunrise I knew the bad weather was gone. I called Bobbie and rescheduled Christmas. She came up from Greenville with Michael, David and Pebbles. Our neighbor, Barbara, joined up for dinner, too. It was the best Boxing Day ever!

Our driveway. What a difference a day makes!

Behind our house is littered with tree limbs.

We had a beautiful sunset that evening.

The Last of the Ice Pics

While the trees were exploding and falling around us Erin wanted to walk down to the bottom of the road and see if her car was OK. I wouldn't allow it. Later that day as it warmed up the trees stopped snapping off and it sounded like it was raining ice. I went outside with her and watched her walk to her car but told her not to walk under any trees.

My favorite dogwood!

You can see the tops broken off the tulip tree.

Everything was covered with thick ice.

More Ice Pics

The top of this tree landed upside-down.

More limbs on the ground.

The trees were bending even more as the day went on.

Erin found this part of the tulip tree on the deck.

The deck looked like it was covered with broken glass but it was ice. We were lucky the glass table top didn't break.

PeeWee and Harvey spent the day in front of the fire.

Later in the afternoon Robert went back up in the attic and pulled insulation away. He found a stick poking through the roof. The top of the tulip tree must have hit the roof first, poking a hole in it before it smashed the chair. He plugged the hole with bubblewrap and duct tape and put a large container underneath for insurance. We were glad to find the problem and didn't have to worry about this happening again. We were glad to be able to put the dining room furniture back, too.

What More Could Happen?

Well, since we weren't going anywhere and no one could come here, we decided to have mimosas with our breakfast. We finally got Robert off the phone - everyone was calling about downed trees blocking the roads - breakfast was ready and Erin was whining about opening gifts. I just poured the mimosas and was carrying mine to the living room when I noticed a spot of water on the dining room table cloth. I looked up at the ceiling and saw water dripping in. Then I looked at the buffet and it was covered with water. We all sprung into action and removed the breakables from the buffet and Robert & Erin pushed it into the kitchen. Then I took the table cloth off and Erin took the leaves off the table so we could push it out of the way and roll up the rug. Erin grabbed containers to put under the drips and I went upstairs in the attic but didn't see any water coming through. I was glad because I didn't want to have to move all the boxes up there but then that meant the leak was probably due to ice dams (or damn ice) and that's not good.

We pretended the buffet was a kitchen island.

Erin was using the dining room as a dance floor.

We finally had all the drips falling in containers and sat down to breakfast and gift-opening.

Our favorite was this one from Grandma. Was it a sock puppet that didn't work? We talked to her later and found out it's used to put a wine bottle in and give to someone. (Don't ask Erin for wine as a gift!)

Merry Christmas?

I was sitting on the couch with the cats and heard a loud crack followed by a big thud. We all jumped. I looked out the door and this big tree limb was laying on the chair on the deck and had bent the metal frame. It was actually the top of the tulip tree next to the deck.

The trees were really bending from the weight of the ice.

Erin and I took a few pictures from the lower level patio but stayed under cover at all times because it was so scary.

The ground was becoming littered with limbs.

My favorite mountain laurel was bending.

This snapped-off tree was a sourwood.

Merry Christmas?

Christmas morning I awoke at 6:45 to the sound of - reindeer paws on the roof? No, it was the generator purring outside the bedroom window. My first thought was, "Oh, #*&+@!!! We got the ice storm!" I got out of bed and turned on some outside lights and everything I could see was covered with ice. I waited until it started to get light and stood on the front porch and back deck and took these pictures. It was beautiful! But then I kept hearing what sounded like gunshots all around. It was the trees snapping off and breaking from the weight of the ice and limbs were falling everywhere. I sent some pictures to Bobbie so she would understand why we were postponing Christmas dinner. Then we lost cable, internet and phone.