By now a lot of people have shared their ‘oh my god it snowed for 3 days’ stories so I wanted to get last weekend photos up here so we can move on to SPRING.
The weather channel kept promising rain and it just kept on snowing. We lost power on Sunday but it wasn’t a big deal because it was out from noon until 8 pm. I actually enjoyed the profound quiet in the house with no electrical buzz in the background. We had a quiet day reading and napping. We were enjoying a candlelight dinner (okay – I thought it was cool and Keith just wanted to see his dinner) and moping because we were missing the Closing Ceremonies of the Olympics when the lights came back on.
See that huge pile of snow above and this shot below? These huge drifts are from the snow coming off of our metal roof. We spent a few days listening to the avalanches and the thundering snow thudding to the ground all around the perimeter of the house as it started to warm up.
We dug our way out to the trucks on Tuesday. Of course the trucks are parked OUTSIDE the garage. One of the things on my list of must-haves when we were house hunting was a 2 car garage so we wouldn’t have to dig our vehicles out anymore. And of course, now that the garage is full of a hot tub, treadmill, walking desk and gardening tools there is no parking available. So we have joined the throngs of people that use their garage as a storage locker. Hopefully in a few weeks we can remedy that.
This is the view out our front door. Our office window looks out to this area and we were both working Monday morning when we heared a loud WHOOMPPH and all this snow came tumbling down. I was pretty alarmed and went to check and make sure the cat wasn’t out there because he does like to hang around this front stoop to check the bird feeder out. Nope – he was fast asleep on the couch.
Pots of bamboo are pretty mangled and see those branches in the right top corner of that photo? That is my prize ‘Katsura’ Japanese maple. Oh my breaking heart! We bought that tree at Island Specialty Nursery in Chemainus a few years ago and I dug it up and brought it with us when we moved. That corner is the perfect spot and it was settling in very well.
This was the view I was looking forward to this year out the office window. I was horrified when I went out the door to check on it. Half the tree had been snapped off. We both started shoveling quickly to clear the front path and kept an eye on the roof.
I was worried about the camellia shrub on the left and kept getting in behind it and using a broom to push big chunks of snow out of it. Hopefully all the buds haven’t broken off. Can’t wait to find out what colour it is.
And there is the nasty valley of snow that was taking out my tree.
As I was standing there taking this photo all that snow proceeded to move and came crashing down on my poor tree and snapped off a few more branches. Oh you should have heard the cries of horror.
I don’t mean to sound so dramatic but this really, really sucks. We spent days going all around the property and garden bashing snow off of all the trees and shrubs so that they didn’t get damaged. And in 10 minutes right outside the front door, this happens. What the F###***CK!
I am so stubborn about rehabbing this tree that I scrounged through the snow and found most of the large branches. The leaf buds were just starting to enjoy the warm weather. I put them all in a bucket of water and I am going to try to root them. I know, I know. That isn’t the way to propagate a maple, but I just have to see if I can rescue any part of this tree.
And it will be interesting to see if it recovers and sprouts any new branches. What will be, will be. Here’s one more video of the snowy afternoon thaw on the patio.
It is Saturday, March 8 as I write this and now we are in the middle of a Pineapple Express and most of the snow has melted. I went out this morning and bashed the last huge pile of snow apart so that it would melt. Good riddance.