Sunday, February 28, 2010

SNOWICANE 2010

i'm sure you've all heard about the nasty confluence of storms attacking the northeast u.s. last week... it all started harmlessly enough with wet snow on the budding snowdrops around noon thursday...less than a foot of snow thursday afternoon, yet the pyrocantha is already in the driveway?
this was the heaviest wet snow people around here can remember, and it stuck to branches obscuring our house from the street... streets not plowed yet... we lost power thursday night at 8:30 pm...
downed trees were a major problem... 75 trees fell in our small town... 40,000 people lost power in our county...
we walked into town looking for a warm restaurant, but everything was closed...
one had to be careful walking under these beautiful arches down the street from us... a person died in central park, nyc, from a falling branch...
our cold house... we had 16 inches of snow...
friday morning, no power, but a patch of sun broke through to brighten spirits...this sun later melted the snow from the branches, but i ran out quick to snap these...
the river birch bent to the ground... i'm glad it survived
the spruce was definitely meant for this weather...
witch hazel 'diana' before i rescued it from the snow... it did lose one large branch, as did my southern magnolia, which lost its leader...
witch hazel 'diana' has been in full bloom...

here are the branches i had to cut from the witch hazel and magnolia... the house was about 50 degrees when i took this!
saturday morning, the rising sun set the palisades ablaze! we finally had our power restored around 3 on saturday afternoon.

7 comments:

Sophie Munns said...

EM,
No power and all that snow - however did you manage? Before starting blogging last year I had never
seen continual images of day to day life through such a heavy snow season. 2 months ago I thought...well...thats been tough...now i am completely blown away by what yuve endure this winter .... it is difficulat to recall images of beounty in the potager and your delight in the continual showings of new and wondrous green things.
Your photography is wonderful and masks the hard facts until you think how long its been going on!

Hope you are warm and feeling sufficiently hardy to hold out for the signs of spring Em!
best,
Sophie

miss m said...

Good grief, you had it worse than us ! Lots of bent branches here too but not as much damage, and no casualties ! (that’s so sad). No power outage either. Good thing you saved your beautiful witch hazel. I stepped in to rescue a few cedars. My birch looked exactly like yours and came back. I’m noticing some breakage on the more brittle shrubs now that the snow is receding.

It sure has been a trying Winter for you ! I hate to say it but your pics are beautiful and your bouquets too ! Glad the power's back.

Connie said...

Wow...hard to imagine the severe weather when we have had one of the mildest winters on record, due to El Nino.
Beautiful photos!

Marie said...

Wow, this was a lot of snow! And no power, brrr... I hope you have a fireplace.

Here were I live on the southwest coast of Norway we have had more snow and for a longer time than I have ever experienct in my life!

em said...

sophie, what a beautiful comment, thank you so much. it is better now, as you can see. i would really like to live somewhere warmer, but most of my family are here, and i love our garden. thanks again!

miss m, well, you usually will win the snowfall contest... i don't envy you your longer winter! yeah, hey, i didn't sign up for winters like Canada's!!! thanks for the uplifting comments!

connie, thanks for the comment! i'd love to live in cali!is idaho usually colder than ny?

marie, we have a fireplace, but it is not efficient at warming the house... we wore lots of clothes. the snow wasn't the most i've ever seen, but it was the heaviest, most dangerous storm i've ever seen. thanks for the comment.

Kerri said...

All I can say is "Wow"! It must've been quite an endurance test managing without heat for those couple of days, but oh, how beautiful the snowy scenery is!
That's a gorgeous pic of the snowdrops too.
Love your pretty bouquets by the fireplace.
Let's hope the storms are behind us now. This gorgeous spring weather makes it easy to believe they are! :)

em said...

kerri, winter is so done, and we won again!