![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/miscphotos\/newyear2015ice\/sunset.jpg\")
<\/p>\nIt’s 11:03 a.m. and I’m still in sweats. We just killed a pot of coffee, a tray of cinnamon rolls (Sister Schubert’s, of course) and a rasher of bacon (whatever a “rasher” is). The Rose Parade is on TV, we’re rapidly killing BTUs via the gas log, it’s 24\u00ba, and we’re still iced in.<\/p>\n
In other words, it’s a perfect New Year’s Day.<\/p>\n
We brought in the new year while streaming a cheesy Netflix movie (something involving hipsters trying to survive an earthquake in Chile). We actually gave up around 1:00 a.m. when we saw that there were still 40 minutes left; our inner party animals are pretty domesticated.<\/p>\n
I guess our newspaper delivery person is having an even more leisurely NYD than us, since the paper hasn’t yet shown up. No problem; it’s probably full of the stuff I’m about to share with you.<\/p>\n
I think we got a bit more ice overnight, and the silence in the neighborhood continues to be deafening. It’s so unusual to hear almost no traffic noise from any direction, but at the same time, my footsteps on the crackling ice seem to echo throughout the entire neighborhood.<\/p>\n
If we must have an ice storm, this is the kind we want: just heavy enough to add some visual interest, but not enough to damage anything. Here are some scenes, for the Historical Records.<\/p>\n
This sunset was actually a few days earlier. We’ve had a lot of these flaming phenomena lately. I just finally happened to have a camera with me to capture one.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I’ve always liked icicle Christmas lights, but never thought we’d have some with the real thing.<\/p>\n
![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/miscphotos\/newyear2015ice\/xmaslight.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Our palm tree had a tough winter last year, and it never really recovered over the summer. Isn’t this the saddest-looking tree you’ve ever seen? I’m not sure it will be with us by the end of 2015.<\/p>\n
![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/miscphotos\/newyear2015ice\/palm.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Fortunately, we didn’t have a lot of wind with the ice, but we still managed to attract a tumbleweed. (OK, technically this is the carcass of a careless weed, not a Russian thistle, but the result is pretty much the same.)<\/p>\n
![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/miscphotos\/newyear2015ice\/tumbleweed.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
As I mentioned, so far we’ve had no damaging effects from the ice, unlike what happened in November of 2013<\/a>. The desert willow is holding up nicely.<\/p>\n The photinia is a bit shocked by this development.<\/p>\n I can’t even remember what this plant looked like in warmer times.<\/p>\n I briefly considered taking my morning coffee out here. Interesting how quickly one can dismiss a bad idea.<\/p>\n I hope your New Year’s Day is equally scenic, peaceful, and relaxing!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s 11:03 a.m. and I’m still in sweats. We just killed a pot of coffee, a tray of cinnamon rolls (Sister Schubert’s, of course) and a rasher of bacon (whatever a “rasher” is). The Rose Parade is on TV, we’re rapidly killing BTUs via the gas log, it’s 24\u00ba, and we’re still iced in. In… Continue reading New Year’s Day at Casa Fire Ant<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photography","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1061"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9272,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1061\/revisions\/9272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/miscphotos\/newyear2015ice\/desertwillow.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/miscphotos\/newyear2015ice\/icyleaves.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/miscphotos\/newyear2015ice\/icycrescent.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/miscphotos\/newyear2015ice\/sideyard.jpg\")
<\/p>\n