Ice Storm!

To borrow a helpful Southern saying, I spent the month of March as busy as a one legged man in a hiney kicking contest (although the word isn't usually hiney). Either way, for weeks I've been too busy to read or write or do anything that wasn't work related. All work and no play was making me dull, so I took a few days off around Easter, and got caught up on life. It was wonderful! One of the things I did was download pics from my camera.

It was so much fun looking back at the photos I'd taken from late February and March. I felt disappointed that the month of March was gone, and along with it, the opportunity to blog about my late winter adventures. But then I thought: Who says it's too late? It's my blog...I can do anything I want!

So here it is: I declare the first week of April to be a March retrospective! Starting with...the Ice Storm.

Western North Carolina doesn't get ice storms too frequently, thank goodness, but we had one a few weeks back that scared me to death. At first the freezing rain was mesmerizing and beautiful, coating every surface with ice, and turning the landscape into a fairyland.

I wasn't overly concerned, because Mr. Weatherman had assured us that the temps would rise above freezing by mid-morning. But Mr. Weatherman was wrong. It stayed cold, the freezing rain continued, and the trees around the house began leaning ominously.

And then around noon, we heard it. The sound of a gunshot, which during an ice storm means only one thing - breaking trees. Lady was already nervous, walking around with me, looking out the windows.

But when the cracking and popping started, she decided to take cover.

If a giant tree fell on the house, I don't think being under the keyboard tray would help, but I didn't tell her that. She hid under the desk briefly, then got up to look out the window again. That's the thing about living with a German Shepherd, you never have to worry alone. A German Shepherd will always worry with you. Other breeds, not so much.

"Look, even the cat is sleeping! What's wrong with all of them? 

Don't they know we're in imminent danger?" 

Fortunately - in spite of Lucky's, Katie's, and Lucy's complete lack of vigilance - we all survived the experience.

In the end it turned out to be an opportunity to get some amazing photos of nature's artistry, rather than a scene of impending disaster.

Even the trees were relatively unscathed. Remarkably, the only loss was this two story Leyland Cypress at the back of the house, which you can see through the living room windows in this photo taken earlier in the winter.

The weight of the ice completely flattened that Cypress. After the ice storm, it looked like a pitiful wilted shrub instead of the giant it had been hours earlier. But all in all, this felt like a rather miraculous escape from danger. We didn't even lose power!

And afterward, Lady slept.