This Sabal Palm took a bit of a beating when the city came through our street to clear foliage away from the overhead wires.
This was the first time the city have done this since we moved to East Austin over 20 years ago. It was either a stupid hair-cut, or they were going to cut down the whole thing!
I assume the now decapitated palm will push out new center growth when it breaks dormancy, we will see.
Further down the street, this pittosporum was sliced in half by the same crew to reveal this elegant pole.
I won’t bother posting what all the crepe myrtles ended up looking like…you already know.
After the brutal pruning came the brutal Freeze.
Monday, 15th Feb, 1am – the power goes out in the Patch.
Little did we know we were going to remain without power for the next four freezing days and nights!
Our old uninsulated 1890’s house was built and positioned for maximum airflow, to keep it cool in the summer. It’s cold inside our house when temperatures dip below freezing, even with the heater on!
“Arrr and let me tellest ye Winslow, when the wind came down from the north that eve, and the following eves, rattling the shutters, the cold creeping into ye bones, all was dark, all was lost in the Patch.”
“Boredom Makes Men To Villains.”
“Spock…our life support systems are down, our technology rendered useless, we have got to get out of here…got to get…somewhere warmer…”
Going to bed had become a life and death affair.
She looks like she is smiling, in fact, that was the expression she wore as her face froze the first night of the outage, her birthday.
You could see your breath inside the house.
This old Coleman Lantern and a hot water bottle from my youth provided some light and warmth. It uplifted our spirits a couple of hours each night. Well that, and a very nice Scotch I had forgotten about in my old hipflask.
Unlike many, thankfully we did not lose water or gas to our stove. Unfortunately, our oven had an electric ignition, so that was rendered useless.
Having a bath was also not a viable option.
It snowed.
It iced.
It snowed some more.
It is ironic we couldn’t really enjoy it, because we were just too cold.
Though we did venture out everyday for a walk.
During the day it was warmer outside, than inside the house.
Snowboarding the Eastside!
We spent many hours in the car, a major source of heat and device charging. I grew up in many cold environments and old houses in Scotland, but for the record, this was the coldest and darkest escapade of my life.
It all became too much for my Desert Willow…the first casualty of many I fear.
Arizona Cypress ‘blue ice’ living up to its name.
Hours past into days, days passed into weeks…etc., etc.
“How long have we been in this house?
Five weeks?
Two days?
Help me recollect.”
By the end of the 4 days things were pretty grim hygienically, morally and food wise.
Then pop! On came the lights, and a few days after that…the thaw.
Who says we don’t have fall color in Central Texas…we do now!
I also have a lot of oozing and fizzing going on courtesy of my fleshy plants.
The Sago Palms new coloration looks amazing, even more tropical looking then when it’s green! The background variegated pittosporum has already began to defoliate as a lot of plants will do in the weeks ahead. Just what I need, more leaves to clean up.
We wont know the full damage of course until the Spring, but I can safely say things have looked a lot ‘better’ in the Patch.
“Would you like some blackened citrus or rosemary to go with your catfish sir?”
The barrels and tongues baring the scars of the icy ordeal.
As for me,
I will summarize that frigid week and my general demeanor at the end of it in one image:
Stay Tuned For:
“Post Agricultural Apocalypse”
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Philip, you’ve summed up that hellish week and its aftermath perfectly, esp with the spot-on
stills from the Lighthouse movie. Yep, things were pretty grim here at the Penick household too, and we “only” went 3 days/nights without power/heat and had the luxury of a gas fireplace. Yes, it was warmer outside than inside during the day, after a few days without power. Yes, morale was low — and it’s amazing how a little light (your Coleman lantern, our headlamps) could lift the spirits. How did cavemen do it?? And yes, the brown garden aftermath is shocking. What a birthday for your daughter to look back on, and oh the stories they’ll both have to tell their children – ha! Your pics remind me of the illustrations in Little House on the Prairie during the Great Blizzard. :) Let’s all never do this again, OK? ;)
Thanks Pam, yes…I hope that we never go through anything like that again! A birthday she will always remember, haha. There was one day, maybe it was the Tuesday, that felt even colder than the rest, that was our lowest point. I was in three pairs of trousers, eight top layers, three hats, and one normal sock with three wool Pipe Band socks pulled past the knees of my three pairs of pants…playing chess next to a candle! It was a most peculiar scene.
So much brown, though I am confident a lot of things are going to pull through. My baby barrels in the front are looking a bit dodgy, as are the Rosemary’s, Bush Sages, and Palms – we will see.
Fingers crossed!
Philip, your blog always makes me laugh, even this one. Why? Because I could identify with your experience. And we may as well laugh as cry, eh? We have started the cleanup on some of the plants and we play the waiting game on others. The trees and shrubs murmur among themselves, “Hold on to your bark! Here she comes again.”
Hi Ragna, happy to amuse!
There will be a lot of clean-up in the weeks ahead. Apart from the mushy plants I am going to hold off on most of the pruning until we are out of the woods from any other frosts this year. I did break down and cut back my oleanders though – I just couldn’t stand to look at them anymore! haha.
OMG! Philip. Don’t tell me we are the only two people with hot water bottles.,it sure saved us from freezing to death. Now your family knows how life was growing up in the UK. So sad for your garden but I know it won’t stop you from putting it to rights. I hope many survive.
Hi Jenny, the hot water bottle was a savior in the cold, my kids had never seen or used one before, but they quickly fell in love with it. Mine was a particularly disturbing bottle based on a rather odd ‘Jelly Baby’ theme!
I showed them how to properly fill it and push the steam out of it to stop it expanding / giving them 3rd degree thigh burns. I just wished we had more of them to go around!…Amazon!!!
Everything looks so bad right now, but many plants, I think, will prevail come the spring. I hope.
What??? You removed the oleanders? What happened to the wonderful spider their bent over branches revealed? Loved it!
Hi Ragna.
I did not remove the oleanders, just cut them back to about 2-3 feet!