After The Storm
Or I suppose I should title this “between storms”, right?
After a polar vortex week that left us with 12+ inches of snow and sub-0 temps, we got slammed again with several days of ice.
The ice storm knocked out power, closed schools for days--again, turned surfaces into ice skating rinks and took down tons of limbs and in some cases full trees.
Our neighborhood lost power two days in a row, thankfully it came back on both nights so we didn’t have to find different sleeping arrangements.
A full tree fell onto a house in our neighborhood, rendering the house inhabitable. The pictures in this article don’t even show the worst of it. From behind it looked like a tornado went through.
We’re super fortunate to have had it somewhat easy. Still, we lost a lot of limbs off two three-story tall mature pine trees in the backyard. Looking out the window after the ice storm it looked like several of the heavy lower limbs were down but that the clean up would only be moderate. Upon further inspection this weekend, it’s a much bigger clean up job.
Ben took a chainsaw to the downed limbs for two hours on Saturday, cutting them down to a manageable size for removal. I invited neighbors to come over and gather free firewood, and had one woman take me up on the offer and together we took three loads of firewood out, completely filling the back of her Ford Escape. We can see higher up in the trees several more limbs that snapped but are stuck and will need another wind storm to knock them down.
On Sunday Ben loaded a truck full with the remainder of the debris and hauled it to a local park where they were hosting free brush disposal related to the storm.
Not only is it sad these beautiful trees were damaged, but it was a heck of a lot of work, sweat, sap and time to clean up. It’s been an interesting reminder that our typically standard suburban life also comes with some caveats due to living in West Michigan.
It can get cold here--bitterly cold. It can snow--by the foot or more thanks to the nearby lake. And all in all we’re not a big city, we’re a moderately sized one that bands together beautifully and does the best we can when this stuff happens.
Another ice storm is forecasted to hit in a few days. Keep your fingers crossed for us this one goes easy on us.
After a polar vortex week that left us with 12+ inches of snow and sub-0 temps, we got slammed again with several days of ice.
The ice storm knocked out power, closed schools for days--again, turned surfaces into ice skating rinks and took down tons of limbs and in some cases full trees.
Our neighborhood lost power two days in a row, thankfully it came back on both nights so we didn’t have to find different sleeping arrangements.
A full tree fell onto a house in our neighborhood, rendering the house inhabitable. The pictures in this article don’t even show the worst of it. From behind it looked like a tornado went through.
We’re super fortunate to have had it somewhat easy. Still, we lost a lot of limbs off two three-story tall mature pine trees in the backyard. Looking out the window after the ice storm it looked like several of the heavy lower limbs were down but that the clean up would only be moderate. Upon further inspection this weekend, it’s a much bigger clean up job.
Ben took a chainsaw to the downed limbs for two hours on Saturday, cutting them down to a manageable size for removal. I invited neighbors to come over and gather free firewood, and had one woman take me up on the offer and together we took three loads of firewood out, completely filling the back of her Ford Escape. We can see higher up in the trees several more limbs that snapped but are stuck and will need another wind storm to knock them down.
On Sunday Ben loaded a truck full with the remainder of the debris and hauled it to a local park where they were hosting free brush disposal related to the storm.
Not only is it sad these beautiful trees were damaged, but it was a heck of a lot of work, sweat, sap and time to clean up. It’s been an interesting reminder that our typically standard suburban life also comes with some caveats due to living in West Michigan.
It can get cold here--bitterly cold. It can snow--by the foot or more thanks to the nearby lake. And all in all we’re not a big city, we’re a moderately sized one that bands together beautifully and does the best we can when this stuff happens.
Another ice storm is forecasted to hit in a few days. Keep your fingers crossed for us this one goes easy on us.