A winter casualty

Last night, we had snuggled onto the couch after dinner to watch an episode of the amazingly hilarious An Idiot Abroad (seriously, if you haven't watched it, do it. Karl Pilkington is the funniest, most genius man on the planet... you'll thank me.) Well, only a few minutes into the show we heard the most ginormous crash outside. Branden and I turned to each other and knew exactly what it was before we even went to the window to look.

Like much of the northeast, we've had crazyyy ice dams on our roof the last week or so which resulted in two leaking windows. Nothing major, but we called a few companies yesterday to get estimates on what it would cost to have someone come and clear the ice and snow from our roof. Well, that won't be necessary now.

The gigantic crash was about 1,000 pounds of ice sliding off of the roof at once and plummeting down to the patio in the backyard.



Those are just some of the blocks. For some reference, that folding table in the back is 6 feet long. They're ridiculously heavy and huge. Branden struggled to move them with a shovel.

While we are so grateful that no one was outside when it happened, especially Lucy (who has taken to laying down under the roof's edge to eat fallen icicles), our glass patio table was not so lucky.

You can hardly see it, but the table has been smashed into a zillion tiny shards of glass, mixed in with the snow and ice:



This spurred an emergency trip to (where else?) Home Depot. We couldn't risk Lucy walking around in there and stepping in glass, so we had to section it off quick.

We picked up some stakes, traffic cones, and temporary fencing. At the checkout, the clerk asked us if we were buying supplies for an elaborate prank. I wish!

So here's the hazard zone that our backyard is now:





It ain't pretty. We had to use cones there because we wouldn't be able to get the stakes through the concrete patio underneath. Lesson learned: nothing is being stored against the house next winter.

The absolute worst part is that it'll have to stay like this until the 3-4 FEET of snow melts and we're able to clean up the glass. At least we'll get to shop for a new patio set in a couple of months. :)

Dear Spring,
Any time you want to arrive I know of some folks here in NH who would greatly appreciate it.
Sincerely,
Lucy's House