Oh My! Such A Night!!

October 30, 2011

Wow, what a night we had here in New England.  I was at work, and a little past midnight I heard a loud CRACK!  I thought, "Oh Oh, who the hell is shooting a gun?"  However, after a bit of investigation, I found that it was a tree in the back yard that had cracked and come down.  At the same time this happened, I saw bright lights through the sky light window.  So now I'm wondering if we also had lightening or if there was a live electrical wire somewhere out there. 

On my way to work last night, it rained so hard that there were puddles on flat streets.  It started to let up a bit by the time I arrived at work, and in a few hours everything outside was completely covered in snow and ice.  For hours, the heavy snow fell, and the gusty winds blew.  A regular Nor'easter!

There was so much moisture in the snow that the weight of it pulled down a lot of power lines, broke huge limbs off trees, and had trees and bushes along the side of the road hanging out into the street.  Some of them froze in the snow and ice right on the road. 

I was smart though.  When I got to work last night, I parked my car in the barn so I wouldn't have to dig it out in the morning.  At 2:55 am, we lost all power and phones (at work).  Guess who could not get her car out of the barn this morning?  Yup!  Lil ole me.  The barn door operates on electricity.  With no power, the remote could not open the door. 

I called the Mrs' son.  He lives down the street a little ways, and he said that his power had gone four hours earlier than ours did.  He came over this morning with his plow to clean out the driveway and open the barn door so that I could get my car.

One end of the street was closed due to downed trees, but the end I needed to travel was fairly okay.  There were large tree limbs down across the street all over the place, and trees in yards demolished.   These are a couple of photos of the road I traveled to go home, and another photo of a tree that was totally demolished in someone's front yard.

 

Daylight is beginning when I leave to go home so the sky is really beautiful in places.  At one point, I had to pull over and get out of my car to take photos of the sky.  The sun was beginning to rise, and the sky was simply gorgeous.  See if you don't agree with me.

When I got home, Joe and one of the other dwarfs was outside just finishing up shoveling out the driveway.   These guys are good to me.  But then I'm nice too.   I brought them home some hot coffee from Dunkin Donuts.  When I got out of my car I noticed some damage to one of my gentle giants.  (trees)  Joe said that last night they heard a huge crack!  Almost like an explosion.  It was a huge limb on the tree that had snapped from the weight of the snow and ice.  Here's my tree.

See the big portion of the limb that snapped, and even the bark is stripped off a big portion of the limb.  Gosh, I hate to see these beautiful big trees getting hurt.  This portion of the tree is way up high, and I don't think we can reach it to bring that limb down.  I'll have to wait and see what we can do.

Joe went out early this morning so try to shake some of the ice and snow off my Japanese Red Maple tree.  The poor darling's branches were hanging way down to the ground and stuck there with ice.  Joe cleared the ice, and then had to climb up onto part of the tree to shake some more of the snow and ice out of the tree.  He knows that I reallly love this tree.  So, thank you, Joe!!

Now I think I will see about having a little nap.  I did not get any winks last night, and I have to go back to work tonight.  Till tomorrow, Y'all stay warm, and have a magnificent day.

Hugs, Edna B.

p.s.  We were very lucky as our area here at home did not lose any power.  Thank you, thank you.