On Thursday, February 11, 2021, the first winter storm hit our area. Mostly with snow and wind. Over the next four days, there were two more winter storms that were snow, ice, or a mix depending on where you lived in the entire Willamette and Columbia River basins. At our home, we had about 6 inches of snow fall, over the five day period, but also we had about 1.5 inches of accumulated ice, over the second half of that period. With that much ice, there was going to be damage. The largest of which was on our Norway maple trees, and our Douglas fir trees. We lost branches on both, and not small one, either. We got firewood out of the Douglas fir branches!
Below are some of the photos I took near the end of the storm, on the morning of Monday, February 15. That morning I made coffee by boiling water on our camping stove and making a french press. I also cooked lunch on the stove, since the power was out, and had been out since the night before.
Our California Bay tree, in the front yard, covered in ice.
A view of our backyard, Monday morning the 15th, while I boiled water for the coffee.
Our backyard, after the sun came out, late Monday morning, and the ice started falling from everything!
Most of the fallen Douglas fir tree branches. (FYI, the table was already falling apart, due to age and wood rot.) The maple branches fell in the neighbor's yard (to the North), without damage to any structures for either of us.
And despite the damage, there was beauty during and after the storm passed.
Even the birds were happy after the storm ended. (Song Sparrow, Bewick's Wren, both year-round residents here in the Coastal Pacific Northwest.)
A year later, there is definitely noticeable changes to some of our landscape. Although, this storm was followed four and a half months later by an extreme heatwave, which then altered things in a different manner. (But that is for another blog post.)
