winter storms – New England's Narrow Road

Trees bending under weight of ice. — The ice pulled my tree over

I got up early this morning like I always do, and flipped on the outside light to see this little birch tree in the back yard all bent down. Its the tree where I hang a couple of my bird feeders and I had to go out (later) and move them to a new place.
I was up at 3am and about 15 minutes later (thankfully I had made my coffee!) the power went out. Actually, I was surprised it was on at all the way the wind was blowing and after seeing the coating of ice outside.
Surprisingly the lights were back on about an hour later. When it got light enough to get some pictures I went out to see how icy it was. The trees are glistening in the sun so it looks very pretty and once the ice melts off the little birch I am hoping it will straighten back up.

My landlady bought a roof rake a few days ago and we have all been busy getting as much snow off the roof as we can. It turned out that the storm yesterday became more rain and freezing rain than snow, but we still needed to be ready.
She told me that people were coming up to New Hampshire to buy roof rakes from as far away as Connecticut and that the store only had a few left. So she was lucky to get hers.
Getting the snow off the roof is not too bad, but then where do I put it? As you can see (above), shoveling my deck is not easy now that the snow is so high and more WILL be coming off the roof – where will I put it?

Raking snow off the house roof — Getting the snow off before the next storm. 1/4/11

Richie (my cat) is very bad. You can see him in his favorite spot for hunting birds (in my first picture above). Yesterday while I was cleaning off the deck and shoveling out my woodpile, he caught a little chickadee. I hate that! I have set up three areas where the birds can eat so when Richie is outside the birds don’t have to eat near him, but they sometimes still get too close and he is very fast.

When I was uncovering the wood to lug some inside, Richie was climbing on it and fell head first into a deep pile of snow. It was hilarious. I should have had my camera – but I was working – because he was a sight with his butt sticking up out of the snow and his head buried. He managed to turn his head to the side and look up at me and I grabbed him and pulled him out. Pretty funny.

One day this overhang of thick ice will come crashing down off the roof. Yikes.

Ice Dams – what to do (agordonins.wordpress.com)
Timesunion.com: Roof rakes a commodity as snow piles up (timesunion.com)
Roofers busy in snowy Northeast with leaky roofs (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
Cop saves Vt. man trapped up to neck in snow pile (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

We got a bunch of snow last Wednesday. I shoveled off and on all day between digging out the cars (I don’t have a garage) and clearing the deck and steps.

The house I rent has a new metal roof, which my landlord loves becuase now the snow just slides right off…and it did. Overnight the entire load of about a foot of snow slid off the roof – it’s loud too! So I woke up to find that my cleared deck was loaded with a couple of feet of firmly packed snow.

My son helped me clear it, since my back was aching from the day before, but my wood pile is half burried as well and there is no more using the front door – just the back. But the roof is clear!