It is still snowing!

 It is a cold one this morning. I had trouble thinking about getting out of bed. Cinnamon snuggled beside me over night. Predawn he gets up and gets ready for the birds to wake up.

By Tuesday, our trees weren't any worse, but they weren't any better, either. It has snowed since the Monday/Tuesday rain, ice rain, and then 8 cm snow. In fact, it has been snowing for days. Not a lot, but, as AC said, it wasn't the day we'd hoped for. They are threatening rain on the weekend. It'll be a mess.

I wandered out, after I'd had my coffee and filled the feeders. The colours were interesting.

It was lovely, but I am still worried about the trees. 

after the storm from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

King Charles IV is a frequent flyer. 

From the bird feeders, he went over to the dried goldenrod and at a bit of food. They fill their bellies with any flora they can find. 

After my morning work, I spent hours cleaning the grout. A brush, and Vim seemed to work. I cramped up more quickly the longer I worked on it over the two days, and took breaks from sitting on my foot stool. You can compare the ↙before and after ↘. My body is sore, but it is done.

Wednesday morning it wasn't any worse, the ice. Mind you, the wind had started up, and the clacking of the icy branches reminded me of Ice Storm '98. I've had the hee bee jeebies all week, after last winter's storm damage. 

We are lucky we have Internet! The TV satellite has been iffy, as well! 

Wednesday we had COVID/flu shots. Then, we went to the Telus store. I'd tried to transfer my Christmas music to iTunes and I ended up killing my phone! I had a message that there wasn't room for all my music. Next the phone ended up in a loop and wouldn't start or shut off. I Googled it and found what to do, but it didn't work. 

The wonderful young lady at the store rebooted it, transferred my data from iCloud, and all was well. WHEW!!! JB had gone next door and grabbed us Subway sandwiches for lunch. We went home and put up our feet.

❄️ A Sunday storm ☃️

❄️ SUNDAY☃️  First, there was 9mm of rain, then it began to get colder. Ice accretion was the difficulty Monday. It is now buried under several cm of snow. And it kept snowing.

Our power flickered off and then on. There was a small outage, quickly fixed.

The icicles on the feeders looked pretty. The tree branches, not so much.

Then the snow began... They just kept drooping more and more.

❄️ Monday morning ☃️ 

We had some snow. It weighed down the branches, sticking to the ice coated branches. I do have my spiffy red boots with cleats, but the ground was warmer than the trees and it was just sludge. 

First I shoveled the sidewalk. It wasn't slippery, but the snow stuck to slush and it was heavy. Next, using the snowblower on the driveway to clear a path to haul out the garbage all was good. Next, I put out garbage. It was coffee and breakfast and I tackled the rest of the driveway.

The oak trees still have leaves, and they are weighed down with ice and sticky snow.

All the bushes lean heavily.

And those beautiful white pines... Cross your fingers for us. We spent several thousand dollars having them cleaned up with breakage from last December's storm. Then another ice storm happened in April – three days after that mess was cleaned up. I worked on it cleaning it up myself, from December to about February, when I gave up and we called in the professionals. There were broken branches high up.

The bird bath is hanging in, icicles dripping and frozen.

Joseph Brian went out for a walk. It was getting worse. 

There he is in the back 40, doing his morning walk. He took photos for me.

It snowed all day. It's 6 a.m., and I can't see any more damage in the dark. I'd love a sunny day. We need to burn off the snow and ice. 

Walkies in the forest

 I left off yesterday, with the kids visiting Crumbly Acres. (How fitting, YAM!)  They went home, happy to have power at their house. Saturday afternoon, April 8th, our Aussie Tree Care people came for another quote. We assured them that we aren't in danger, we could be patient, and to service customers with emergency tree issues from the storm. There are hangers, branches having fallen from the top of the tree, dangling and caught on another branch. We just have to be careful. Other people have trees down everywhere.

I'm still trying to process it all. I took a trek down to the meadow during the storm, April 5th. It was not pretty. JB wants to go down and see the damage, but I won't let him. It is wet and slippery, walking on the soaking wet leaves. 

ice storm '23 from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

I went walkies April 6th, through the forest to assess the damage. Most of the trees had stopped dropping the big branches. As I set off, a huge flock of geese flew northish! 

geese from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

After hearing this, I hustled up to the house.

branches crash behind the frog pond from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

The next day, I found what lots of fallen trees and branches on our 3rd lot.

The damage isn't nearly as bad deep in the forest, where it has integrity, and the trees support each other.

The meadow looked like a pond, with leaning branches everywhere.

We'd just had this tree cleaned up April 3rd, from the December storm. I shook off the branches I could.

The wetland is really wet, and the water high. We've flood warnings on the nearby lakes. They mentioned Skootamata, which I'm sure is flowing at high speed.

I made it down to the frog pond. 

ice storm '23 the melt from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

The water is up to the dock, but it is draining into the wetland, as you can see in the photo above.

On a fallen log, a little bit of colour. We know spring is here.