Our snow days, 2012

We had our share of snow and ice this winter.  My husband shoveled the top half of our driveway, by the garage doors and then ended with one lane to the street, just too much to move, and too heavy.  Of course, after shoveling away the snow along the end of the driveway, the County sent road graders along our street and they promptly piled all the snow up in front of our driveway again.. Not much help.  It was beautiful though, here are our bird feeders covered with layers of snow.

We always enjoy how pretty the yard light looks wearing it's white, winter, hat.  It warmed up a bit and the snow started melting, forming icicles everywhere and enveloping limbs, trees and foliage.

A beautiful Mourning Dove perched in our icy, damaged Flowering Plum tree

The Juniper Tams in back were encased in ice

The branches of our Flowering Plum, in the front yard, encased in ice.  The tree couldn't handle all the extra weight and the limbs and part of the trunk split.

Our damaged Flowering Plum.  This is the second one we have lost to an ice storm.

The last squirrel to perch in our Flowering Plum tree in front.  As you can see, some of the main limbs had already been cut.

All that's left of the tree now.  When the rains cease, we'll dig around the base and cut the horizontal roots away.  Then our neighbor is going to use his truck to pull the tree and other roots out.

It makes us sad, this was a beautiful tree and has been a part of our lives for the past 25 years.

This is what it used to look like on a beautiful Spring day.