THE ICE WON!

Top picture is the first half that crashed, middle pic is the 2nd half and the third pic is my view of the mess from under our deck!

ICE AND A CRASHED DOWN TREE!

The first week of February brought quite the change in weather! The weather report was for LOTS of snow and a possibility of freezing rain and sleet. I set my alarm and got up every couple hours to see the snow arrive! Much to my dismay....around 2 am, I heard rain...looked at the thermometer and it was only 26 degrees! NOT GOOD!!! Rain....what a rip off....just could not believe we were not getting all this snow! I went to work in the morning and not very many people made it in....the van drivers just couldn't get all the people picked up, but we muddled thru the day with who showed up. That night a little after 8pm, we were snuggled down watching NICS when we heard this roar and a crash! What on earth...hubby said, 'I think we just lost our tree!' Yup, but only 1/2 of it crashed. Looked like some of it was on the road, and then I saw our wonderful neighbor headed down the hill with his chainsaw. So we went out to try and get the branches that were on the road cut back....good luck standing up on this junk! Erica stayed on the deck with her dad, the dogs and the neighbor boys while Chris and I tried to stay standing while the neighbor started cutting....great combo...chainsaw and ice!!! Got the stuff off the road that was a hazard and then tried to get back into the house! I was whooped and ended up crashing on the couch...setting the alarm for every couple hours so once again I could see this snow! Never happened, but more ice did! At 10:30, Erica woke me and said we had another crash and she thinks the rest of the tree fell....looked out the window at the same time the neighbor did...yup, we sure did! Waved at the neighbor, closed the window and decided if anyone was out driving on this ice, they could just hit anything that was on the road! So early the next morning, I found out Weaver Leather was closed! The neighbor and I headed out once again to try to clear branches from the road while standing in an upright position. Mission accomplished and back to the house we went. The next hoot was all the ice in the driveway! When it's slick on the drive, we usually slide down, then quickly slide into the grass at the bottom to stop! Not this time, there was a tree in the way. So on Thursday, after quite a few phone calls, I was able to finally locate some salt. Dad picked it up and was able to back into the bottom of the drive. The kids and I spread 150 pounds of salt on the drive and let it and the sunshine do their work! Wow, what a week!
Really gonna miss that tree, but soooo thankful it didn't fall onto the house! Only thing damaged was the top rail of my split rail fence by the mailbox. 2 families have been nice enough to come and collect the wood and brush that evil Mr. Icehole tore down!