This morning brought a steady fall of freezing rain. The drive into work was tricky, the drive home worse. Trees encased in ice bowed, and in some cases broke over Browntown Road. Some branches were so low that it was like driving in a crystal tunnel. Halfway home, a tree fallen across both lanes of the road send me back the way I came. A thirty minute detour, and I was home in time to help with the evening feeding down at the barn. Sheep have an unerring instinct for bad weather, and one ewe marked the occasion by having twins in the barn. Susan had locked the more pregnant sheep up last night expecting just this. Susan hung a heat lamp to take the chill off the new arrivals, and then had to wait five hours for the power company to get fallen limbs off the lines. Nonetheless, mother, son and daughter did well, and are now resting in a warm pen. By sunset, the falling ice had turned to drizzle, with low clouds and fog rolling in off the mountains. The temperature is predicted to rise tomorrow, and none too soon. As I was walking the dog tonight, I could hear branches breaking under the weight of ice. Some would groan, creak, then snap. Others would go at once, with a sound like a shotgun blast, followed by the oddly musical cascade hiss of ice down the hillside.

Here is the view at home after the ice just before dusk: