So an ice storm roared through here early this week and ended up doing more damage than six tornadoes. It didn't freeze on the ground but instead weighted down all the limbs of various trees and power lines with lots and lots of ice.

Yours truly was enjoying shorts + tshirt weather down in Longview Texas. When I came back I was shocked to see what the combination of ice and high wind had done. Shattered and broken trees were everywhere. The power companies are still working on getting all the power back to the people, but we just got it back yesterday.

The damage is worse than a class I hurricane. Limbs were cracking off the trees and falling down to land on something like popcorn in a popcorn popper. There are no chainsaws to be bought in the state.

We pretty much lost a 40' pine tree. I spent the greater part of today cutting away broken limbs from it with a handsaw. There was also a silver Maple in our backyard that lost a lot of limbs. The 80' willow next door was not so lucky. It lost a -massive- limb about 2' in diameter. Looking up and down the street there are broken trees everywhere.

Maybe I can be a lumberjack for hire over Christmas break.