Ice Ice Baby Ice Storm 2011 Long Island

 Adding insult to injury, mother winter has coated us with a layer of Ice.

 I never worried about roofs collapsing, but neither had I ever seen so much snow and then a heavy coating of ice on the rolled roof sections of the Jarvis House.

 When it gets like this the snow melts, sort of, and then it is covered with a crunchy layer of ice.

 Every delicate branch is coated.

 Aside from the obvious dangers of driving on icy roads, the real worry revolves around the very tall trees which already have a layer of frozen snow.  It hasn't been warm enough to melt much of what has fallen  during the previous weeks.  The summer was unusually dry, so the trees are brittle.

This is my lovely Callicarpa under a layer of ice.

 The branches of the split leaf Maple,

 and the branches of the Red Bud tree looking very icy.

 

Yews are loaded with snow and ice. They are bending way down, and hopefully will snap back later on in the spring.

 Ice Cycles on the gutters of a dormer, might look pretty, but repairs will have to be made later on in the summer.

 They are on the rear roof too.

 The White Walnut tree has a covering of snow and now ice on its trunk.

Rhododendron buds are glazed.

Ice collects on everything, even this plant hook.

 Spindly Azaleas are weighted down.

 The smaller split leaf Maple,

 and the big split leaf Maple.

 So far we have been lucky about trees falling on power lines, but in an ice storm, that is the greatest fear.  No electrical power can mean , no heat, water, phone, and cable connections.

You can see how the tops of these mature heritage trees are like sails on a sailboat.  The spreading tops catch the snow and the ice and cannot bear the weight. Sometimes they go down.