This and the next several photos are from the ice storm that hit our city just before Christmas, 2013. The cloudless blue sky made for a brilliant background. If you even touched any of the branches, the ice crackled and tinkled like shattering glass as it broke off in your mitten. It was really quite beautiful, in its own way, if you could suspend reality of the damage it wreaked on the city's tree canopy (they are saying a loss of about 20% of the tree canopy!!)