Ice Day

5 February 2014

A flash of light from outside -- lightning? -- and then Jack's alarm goes off.  "Is Rutgers open?" I ask when I wake up again.  "Yes," Jack says. "It's raining but there's no snow on the street."

I stay in bed another 20 minutes until my alarm sounds.  I reach for my phone to check if the university is closed.  Opening at 11, which isn't really closed at all.

Time to check if all of our trees are standing.  They are, but our next-door neighbor to the east isn't so lucky.

Missed their deck by a couple of feet.  There's going to be a lot more light in our back yard this summer. I can see almost to Princeton Pike now.

I email a couple of people from work, telling them I'll be there around 9 a.m., but no sooner have I hit "send" then Jack announces that Rutgers is opening at noon and both the Hamilton and Princeton Junction train stations are closed.

I send another email that starts with "Scratch that."  No sooner have I hit "send" then Jack announces that the stations are open again but trains are whizzing straight past both of them.  We decide to wait it out and get him to Hamilton.

I write another email, this time to the whole lab, telling them that I don't know when I'll be in.  No sooner have I hit "send" then I get a message that Princeton University is closed.

Halfway through my breakfast, Jack tells his 1 p.m. class that he's canceling it because, at this point, he doesn't know if he can get to Newark in time.  Within minutes, he receives an announcement that Rutgers is closed.

I put on a pot of coffee.

The texts start pouring in:  from Dale, from AK at work, from Cheryl.  Cheryl has been without power since 6:20 a.m., is cold, and in dire need of caffeine and a hot shower.  She'll have to leave the dogs at home, but she'll head over soon. Dale, Sean, and her father are hunkering down with the lights on.  AK has a thesis committee meeting that he's trying to cancel, and also trying to figure out how to get from here to there without being turned back.  We're both checking Twitter for closed roads and downed trees; eventually everyone on his committee reports back and he can stay put.

In the back yard, our pitch pine has been bent over underneath arched bamboo since Monday's snow.  At first I thought I should leave it under there, the bamboo protecting the pine from more ice, but now I want to go out and check, having asked Chris C what he'd do.

Yeesh.  It's a cold mess out here.  The pine is under the bamboo, some of which are over, and some under, three bent arbor vitae.  I rescue the pine first, then do my best with the arbor vitae.  I don't care what happens to the bamboo.

Then I take pictures.

Here's the pitch pine:

The blue spruce (a former Christmas tree):

The black cherry:

Looking up into the corner of four yards:

What's left of the bamboo-arbor vitae tangle:

While I'm out here I might as well take a walk up to the Pike and see what's doing.

Sweet gum seed pods on the sidewalk:

Our eastern neighbors again, this time with a shredded ornamental.

Further along, frozen buds:

Along a fence:

Our driveway, like many others in the neighborhood, ends in a lake.  With so much snow piled up from the plow, the melting water can't get to the storm drain. For a minute I consider digging out the drain, but the snow is so deep I can't tell where it is.

Our back porch:

A view of the bamboo mess from our bedroom window.  I will be monitoring this all day, because that arbor vitae bottom center hasn't bounced back much:

Burnaby doesn't care.

Cheryl arrives.  I get her caffeinated and she plays with Burnaby and Mojo. Moxie is a lump under the bed covers.

While we're talking I notice that one of our dogwood branches is leaning on three lines coming into the house.  "I've gotta go fix that," I tell Cheryl.  She says she'll watch the entertainment from here.  I take a telescoping pole (meant for putting in light bulbs from a distance, but it'll do for this) and whack the ice from the branch, taking care never to touch the lines.  I manage to free the lines and get showered with ice at the same time.

Cheryl eventually warms up enough to get a shower.  "I feel like a new person," she says, and packs her things.  "Gotta get home to the girls," she says, and she's off.

After lunch is more arbor vitae rescue, then a workout.  Work-in?  After cardio (did the lights flicker or am I getting tired?), between lifting sets, I check the tree out back.  Is it moving up?  Will I have to get a rope and pull it straight?  That'll have to wait till tomorrow. Right now I have to re-set the clocks.

Upstairs, the cats have the right idea.  Mojo is out of his hidey-hole: 

Cheryl's power comes back on at 4:00.