What a hellish day - weather wise... Yesterday we had a bit of rain and last night we were stricken with freezing rain, which put a nice icy cap on the soggy snow. While not as severe as our infamous icestorm ( see:
http://canadaonline.about.com/cs/weather/p/icestorm.htm), there was cause for concern. I spent the morning checking the integrity of the roof of my house and clearing away some of the ice that was forming dams on the eaves. In 1998, my home (like thousands of others) suffered damage to the roof and we were "awash" with water infiltrating from ice daming.
This morning the sidestreets were glare ice, and the ensuing demolition derby got underway. It warmed up to 0oC near the noon hour and the ice that was coating the trees started dropping little ice bombs. After making sure the drive and walk ways were well salted, I headed out to the barn.
The main roads were well cleared and salted. Upon turning into Bob's laneway, the world changed. Bob's trees had suffered from the effects of the ice build up. There were branches littering the road all the way to the barn. Bob and Joyce were out earlier clearing large branches from the road to the barn and putting out feed for the local fauna.
Glazed donut:
There was about an inch of ice built up on the shelters, but it came off with one hit with the snow rake, or a shake of the frame cleared both sides of the shelters. The barn was in the process of shedding the tons of snow on its roof. Some of the falling snow and ice came down with a thud that made sure you paid attention to where you walked.
Bob cranked up the tractor to clear tons of slush from the laneway. The snow blower did double duty as a wood chipper as the smaller branches got munched up with the snow. After the laneway was cleared, we made a "road" to Clive's shelter. It is now ready to receive a small green vehicle.
We did a small tour of the property to see if there was any damage, but luckily only the trees counted as casualties. Mind you, some of the ice falling from the 50 foot trees gave us cause for concern... The tour of the vehicle park revealed a nice blue tarp hanging on some trees. Kris' attempt to tarp his newly acquired HUP did not stand up to the high winds we had last week. I took only a few minutes to retarp the truck, and it was back to the barn.
A HUP rewrapped for "Kris-mas":
As the afternoon wore on, we chatted about the New Year. It looks like more of the same for 2010. Time will tell.