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I love storms, preferably summer storms with plenty of warm humid wind, lightning and the attendant thunder, though I love winter storms as well. One of the things I love about around here is that we get our share of storms. Thunderstorms in the summer, plenty of rain and the occasional snow storm in the winter.
When we moved in six years ago (six years now, long stopover!) there were roughly double the number of trees in our neighborhood. Six years of storms have taken their toll on the aging water oaks. Trees don't go quietly, but like everything else, they do go. Usually wind, though the weight of snow has been responsible for some of the biggest coming down.
This week we had my favorite kind of southern winter storm -- an ice storm. Snow storms get all the glory, but ice storms are actually more usual. I didn't even know what an ice storm was when I first came to town in 1999. That winter produced one of the biggest ice storms on record.
Ice storms turn the world to glass. You don't want to drive in them if you can help it, even walking in treacherous, not just because the ground is slick, but because of everything falling. But as with all things that have modicum of danger involved, ice storms are beautiful. This was a small one, but it's a amazing how such a small thing can utterly transform the ordinary into extraordinary. Even something you see everyday, like the sun rising out the back window, looks otherworldly when everything is coated in a thin layer of glittering ice.
True to form, the water oaks continue to shed their branches. We spent the morning enjoying the ice and listen to tree limbs falling around the neighborhood. Trees never go quietly.
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