An icy Christmas

We had an ice storm a few days before Christmas followed by a frosting of light snow on top.  Here ice encases the branches of a lilac bush next to the house.

The bird feeders were busy with birds but wore a glaze of ice and icicles that grew through the day as the freezing rain fell.

A fringe of icicles formed on the tractor.

Ice coats the east fence of the garden and the lilac bushes in front of it.

The dormant grape vines are encased in a layer of ice and icicles.

Looking down the rows of grapes to the remains of last year's tomato patch.

The west side of the garden fence is encased in ice with the frosty forest behind it.

The rain that preceded the ice did melt much of the heavy snow that had lined the lane, but left the lane a sheet of ice.

The bee hives are protected from wind but are surrounded by the ice covered weeds.

A closer view of one of the hives with a fringe of icicles on the bottom of the hive stand.  The reduced entrance into the hive is covered to prevent mice from making a home in the warm hive for the winter.

The straw bales protecting the hives surrounded by a landscape covered in ice.

Heavy snow

The forecasters had predicted two to four inches of snow on Friday the thirteenth and overnight, but we woke up on Saturday morning to find much more.  I measured 11 inches in the lane in front of the house.  Here you can see snow stacked up 8 inches on top of the birdfeeder roofs.  It was a very pretty heavy wet snow that fell without wind and sticking to every branch and twig.

These are the trees on the North side of our front yard early on Saturday morning with the snow clinging to them.

Looking out our front door at the snow in the front yard, clinging to the garden fence and wires as well as the trees.  The electricity blinked on an off a few times during the morning, but thankfully it never stayed off.

My tractor was buried under the heavy snow too and I had to get all cold and wet wiping all of this snow off to get the tractor out to plow our road.

The snow covered our lane and the trees hanging over it.  You can see the tracks of where I came home on Friday when the snow was just a few inches deep, but the snow here was still 11 inches like elsewhere.

Around the curve and looking on west down the lane.

The woods across the field covered in snow.  When I first looked at the thumbnails from these pictures I wondered if there was something wrong with my camera as it appeared that they all came out in black and white.  Then I realized that black and white and shades of gray were the only colors available in the landscape.

Looking along the west fence of the garden to the forest beyond.  Note the show piled several inches high on top of each fence post.

My grape vines now brown and dormant in the winter, covered with snow.

The remnants of this season's tomato plants in their cages under the heavy snow that seems to fill the cages.

These are the bird feeders again taken from outside and down the hill in the back yard.  They have been very busy with all this snow cover and need to be refilled.

Snow covers the pine tree and play set and the trees hanging over them.

Snow covers the trees hanging over hte back yard gate.

The bees are all snug in their hives, now covered with snow.  I have placed bales of straw along the west and north sides of the hives to block the coldest winds in the winter.  I scooped away enough snow that their entrances were not blocked, though there is also a top entrance once they have eaten through a sugar block I put on each hive.

Here are the bales of straw protecting the bee hives from the back (west).

I thought this was an odd sight -- snow filling up the basketball net over our driveway.  It is hard to imaging snow falling fast and gently enough to be able to build up and fill something as open as a basketball net, but it happened here.

I spent most of Saturday afternoon clearing the lane with my tractor.  I wasn't sure it could handle the heavy deep snow as it does not have four wheel drive, but ti performed well, though it took three passes to get it this clear.  It is a narrow track but it is passable.