Part II of our Weather Week to Remember ----Feb. 17, 2015

Icy Trees --after the 1st storm on 2/16  (Lots of trees and limbs down --but luckily,  not in our yard)

I had been complaining about us not having much of a winter here in our area of Tennessee this year----UNTIL this past week...  HA---Mother Nature showed me who is BOSS!!!!!  AND--it's not ME!  All I wanted was a little snow this winter..

SO--Mama Nature gave me a little snow ---and much, much more... First,  she gave us an ICE STORM (2/16)... If you missed that blog post,  click HERE.

The ONE good thing to come out of a week like we had is that we got LOTS of gorgeous photos... I'll share more of them today and in more upcoming posts.

Hope you enjoy some of the pictures I took the day AFTER our ice storm (2/17/15).  Be sure to click on the pictures for enlargements.

One of our Holly Bushes covered with ICE

Looking out in our front yard --toward the street;   As you can tell,  we got a LOT of ice,  some sleet and a little snow.  VERY SLICK outside!

Our poor LARGE Rhododendron Bush;  It is really struggling.  Luckily our deck rail and bird bath are helping to hold the icy Rhody...  Hope the branches don't break.  I love this big bush and it is filled with BUDS... Now I wonder what will happen to it!

Here's another close-up of some of our ICY trees.  The one on the right is our Pink Dogwood....The others are in the empty lot across the street.

A close-up of one of our Holly Bushes filled with ICE

Looking out our driveway the morning of 2/17; That is TOTAL ice under a layer of sleet and a tiny bit of snow... Pretty---but very very slick;

The morning after the Ice Storm,  our community sent out emails telling people NOT to go out due to the horribly slick roads.  The community was busy cleaning up branches and downed trees first before they could 'tackle' the roads--trying to clean them off some.  BUT--the ice really was the worst thing we could have had...   Needless to say,  George and I did NOT go anywhere that day!  We did enjoy taking pictures --so I hope you enjoyed them  today.....

Remember also that along with this ice/sleet/freezing rain/snow,  we had extremely frigid temperatures ALL WEEK.  We were below zero  (F) a couple of days --and one day the HIGH temperature was only about 10 degrees... From Monday,  Feb. 16, until Saturday, Feb. 21----we were below freezing the ENTIRE time.  SO---any ICE or SNOW we got all week just stayed with us the entire week... NOTHING melted --even when the sun came out... Crazy!!!!! 

SO---what comes next???  You will just have to wait and see what happened the next day--on Wednesday,  2/18!!!!!  AND then---there's MUCH more....We had a whopper of a storm on Saturday.  This one took our power out for 50 hours... What a WEEK.  More pictures to come! You just won't believe it!!!!!

Hugs,

Emoticons

Our Ice Storm 2/16/15 (Part 1 of a Weather Week to Remember)

The little cascade behind our home is totally frozen.

On Monday,  Feb. 16, 2015,  we thought we were going to get a very nice snow storm.. However,  that didn't happen... Even though our temperatures were below freezing all day long,  a warm wind aloft came from the south ---and what did we get instead of snow????  We had an ICE STORM.... Yipes!!!!!  The weather people called it everything from ice pellets to freezing rain to sleet.... Whatever it was,  we had almost an inch of ice all over our yard!  Everything glistened and turned white....It was WEIRD...  (Not sure I have ever seen this much ice at one time --at least not here.)

A close-up of the Frozen Cascade behind our home

George,  who doesn't like snow,  said that he'd much rather have a foot of snow than an inch of ice..... We were concerned that we would lose our electricity ---but luckily,  that didn't happen.   We did lose our satellite dish (DirecTV) due to the ice for awhile ---so George had to get the hairdryer out and blow the ice off of the dish....(That worked!!!!)

The Mealworm Feeder... The Bluebirds were able 'somehow' to get into the feeder to eat--but it wasn't easy!

We put our bird feeders out at 7 a.m. before the storm began... I was SO glad I had some food for those sweet little chilled birds... It's so sad to see them (any of the outdoor critters) during weather like this... The poor little birds were at the feeders most all day long... Poor Babies!

Lots of Ice on one of our Redbud Trees

Since we have a lot of trees around our yard,  we were concerned that some limbs would break... Luckily,  other than a few small limbs---we didn't have any damage.

Poor Rhododendron Bush;  Looks SO cold!

But--our wonderful Rhododendron near our deck is struggling and 'bending over'.... Hope the limbs don't totally break... I love that big bush. Many trees and bushes in our area have either broken or are damaged... SAD!

There were Icicles like this ALL around the house.

Close up of one of our icy branches

Our 'resident' Mockingbird stayed at the feeder for a long long time.  I guess --besides eating---he had a little protection under the dome.

SO--what did I do all day on Monday??? WELL---I took pictures and shared them with many friends on Facebook... I did other computer work --such as blogging.  Neither George nor I went outside other than on the deck to put up and then take down the bird feeders. George also worked on the satellite dish from the deck.  I did not go outside ---and decided not to go out at all... All I needed to do was to re-injure that bum knee (which is gradually healing). Yipes!   SO----I was a good girl and took all of my pictures from inside!!!!

That night, we also sat by a warm fire and ate a big bowl of home-made CHILI for dinner....  How's that for my first post from this crazy week,  dealing with this weather????   Guess it could have been MUCH worse though--so we are thankful.

The good news for us is that we truly were lucky---compared to many others in Tennessee (and other areas).  Tennessee was under a state of emergency with lots of trees down,  power lines down and power out for many,  etc....  SO,  even though we were lucky, to tell you the truth,  this was NOT FUN.

ALL of these pictures were taken on Sunday and Monday (Feb. 15 and 16, 2015)...The top two were taken on Sunday --before the storm, when I was outside.    WELL--this is only PART ONE of our "Weather Week to Remember".... I will share more pictures and posts upcoming...  We have had a week of Ice, Sleet,  Freezing Rain,  Snow (yes,  we finally got some snow on Wednesday),  a tiny bit of sunshine,  AND frigid temperatures all week....

AND--the forecasters are predicting another ICE STORM possibility on Friday/Saturday for US... That will be Storm Number Three just this week.  I hope they are WRONG about the ICE....

Hope you are all okay wherever you are.  As bad as this has been for Tennessee,  there are areas around our country/world that are having MUCH WORSE weather than we are having.  Prayers and thoughts for ALL.

Hugs,

Emoticons