A few pictures of the ice storm aftermath

I rode over to vote this afternoon and then went to Mann's Store - lots of damage evident - didn't take any pictures.  Along the southern part of Airport road the power wires and fiber cables were really close to the ground, power poles had been snapped.  Not sure when the power will be restored fully.  I can hear a generator going in the vicinity so even just across Jackson Harbor road the power seems to still be out.  I suppose it depends on which of the three phases is used at your house.

Birches and evergreens seem to have the worst of it.  The ice is kinda pretty in the sun - however these photos are kind of dreary in the overcast:

the ice was really thick

the 30M inverted vee in the front

a little pine bent over in a U to the ground

the ice attacks the crowns of the trees

a little closer to the pine bent in a U

birches don't just bend, they also break

ice on the hedge


I will restart the maple syrup boils tonight.  Only did a little sap collecting today, don't want to get conked in the noggin by a widow maker snapped off in an unexpected gust of wind !


Finally, this ice storm reminded me of this Robert Frost poem from over 100 years ago:

Birches

By Robert Frost

When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.
But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay
As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows—
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It’s when I’m weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig’s having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love:
I don’t know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

source: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44260/birches

Best Regards,
Chuck, WB9KZY
http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm