Phase II Done?

I'll have to do this quickly, in case we lose the internet, again. The electricity has never gone off (hurrah!) but the phone and internet have been off and on today a few times today. It seems that Phase II of the storm is winding down, with just a bit of snow on the radar. There's a lot of cleaning up to do, before life can resume as normal.

Last night, the ice began to build up as it rained, rained, rained. As soon as the rain hit the existing ice, it froze. We could see the ice building up quite a bit, before we went to bed. During the night, the wind grew very strong and, consequently, it blew any dangling ice from houses, trees and shrubs, cars, etc. This morning, it began to snow, so the snow covered the thick layer of ice that still covers the ground and all flat surfaces.

I am glad that I got outside yesterday, to take some photos around the house, since a lot of that ice is gone today.

This first photo shows how the ice was covering branches of trees and shrubs. Our neighbor has a magnolia that was shielded from the wind, so its ice covering is quite thick today.



This photo gives an idea of how the ice covered individual blades of grass.



This last photo is of the stalk of a hosta. I never got around to trimming those down when I put the garden to bed last autumn, and now I'm glad I didn't! It's very pretty.



Steve spent a lot of time at various points of the day, working away at the ice on the driveway. The last time he scraped, he brought in a chunk that was about 7/8 of an inch thick.

Well, as pretty a display as we have with the snow and ice, it is good to know that Punxsutawney Phil did not see his shadow this morning.