Michigan woke up Sunday to the beautiful phenomenon of ice trees and all their attendant problems–power outages, downed live wires, trees utterly destroyed, roads and sidewalk blocked by debris, and an extremely small (and skewing young) crowd at church.

The sounds of ice-laden limbs swaying, tinkling like glass, then cracking, breaking, plummeting, and shattering filled my ears as I chipped the car from its frozen skin.

After church my son “helped” clean up the front yard by karate-chopping ice from the defeated crabapple tree, which is scheduled for demolition this afternoon.

The ash that had thus far escaped death from emerald ash borers and being hit by a car has been severely damaged. I’m going to have to start thinking about moving plants around in the front, as it will likely be a full sun garden next year.

I’m disappointed that these trees will have to be replaced, but grateful nothing fell on the cars or house or power lines. As is so often the case when the weather turns challenging, we have some work to do. But we try not to miss the beauty that comes with the beast.