Vineman was finished are placed on November 6th. December 4th he got decked out for the season.
December 6th Ma Nature further decked-out Vineman with freezing rain and 1 1/2 inch of snow.
Still missing was his nose. This morning (December 13) being a "frosty" morning, I couldn't resist. After all what is a frosty Vineman without a carrot for a nose?
Or maybe it isn't a nose at all but a treat for the local deer. To be continued...
Vineman is a bit air-conditioned because my primary use of my grapevines is to make wreaths. I saved enough to make 4 large gift wreaths...
(Somehow I missed getting a picture of the wreath festooned with baby booties I made for my newborn great niece Lucy Joy and her parents).
a wreath for the house and...
a wreath for the dogs.
While gathering wreath greens, I came across this hand-size mushroom in my garden.
Little did I know when I started this post that we would get an epic ice storm. On December 14, while Eugene got 1.5" of rain in 24 hours, we got the equivalent in freezing rain up here. We immediately lost power, water and road access to the outside. Vineman morphed into Iceman.
December 15 the freezing rain continued. Hundreds of ice coated trees crashing to the ground sounded like canon fire and shook the house with each timber. Countless tree tops and branches continually crashed down with a rifle retort and cascade to tinkling ice.
Cell texting had to be done outside in the 20 degree weather.
On the 15th, the final straw came when I couldn't recharge my batteries on both cameras and the cell phones. I had taken hundreds of pictures of ice coated greenery and destruction. Our power line is normally 30+ feet above the pond surface. (By the time it was restrung, it was actually in the water.) Trees blocking our road had broken it in several places.
What's a Iceman to do?
As it continued to pour freezing rain, I got my ski helmet (after a first trip out resulted in a serious bonk on the head) and started to again clear the road. Cell phones were hooked to the car battery but there continued to be the issue of declining camera battery.
With the help of a neighbor, I got three large trees off our road and Dave and I took a drive around town to survey the ice carnage while charging batteries.
On the 16th, with more trees blocking the drive and not being able to start the chainsaw, I again asked for help and a spark-plug. The Lind family not only came out to assist, Jon helped clear the trees; fixed my chainsaw; drug the generator from the pump house and tried in vane to get it going; did get the generator in the motor home going and helped me move freezers to expose plugs and string power cords. We celebrated with a brief joyous lighting of the Christmas tree lights then hooked up the all important battery chargers. I was back in the photography business.
On the 17th we received a few more hours of freezing rain. Poor Iceman didn't fair so well and crashed to the ground under the weight of his icicle hat.
On the 20th Jon again rescued me when I couldn't start the chainsaw. He came out to clear several more newly downed trees blocking the road. Poor Vineman had to remain supine while I was occupied with still surviving in the dark and without running water.
We got power on the 21st, just in time to shower and go to the Brown Family Christmas celebration.
Exhausted from returning the house from camping mode and road clearing, I joined Vineman in the supine position on the 22nd.
This morning I resurrected Vineman.
He still wears a hat of ice and is a bit misshapened but arises as a symbol of the return to a battered normalcy.
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