Once the power came back on, the big worry at our house was the ornamental trees.

Our yard did fine. We lost some maple branches in our yard, some pines that belong to a neighbor but are on our border lost a lot of branches, the lilac and smokebush bushes were bent down to the ground with the weight of the ice, but there wasn't much trouble.

Once again, we were lucky. We had power back about 4 p.m. Friday because, according to a neighbor, we are on the same power circuit as the Cape Elizabeth Police Station. Once they get power, we get power. Houses that we can see in front and in back of our house did not get power back until this morning.

But despite the problems, the ice on the landscape was beautiful.

Here is the view from our door, at sunset. The ice coating the shrubs is beautiful, if dangerous.

And here is the ice coating the birdsnest spruce at the entrance to our house.

The ice coating the ground, grass and perennials -- now melted with the 50-degree Monday -- did no damage.

And the best news is that I got outside Saturday and Sunday, cut up the limbs that fell down, and picked up as much firewood as we burned keeping warm while the power was out Friday.

Sunday's column was mostly about a really interesting offering -- the centennial edition of the Forest Trees of Maine put out by the Maine Forest Service, but it also included a few other Christmas gift ideas for gardeners.

E-mail this entry to a friend