Arboreal disaster

It never pays to get too smug on this planet of ours ,I have been patting myself on the back for how nicely things have been going ,forest-wise this season ,a nice bit of moisture ,lots of warmth good growth ,what more could I want ?
Who would have thought that SNOW would have been my nemesis in the last week of January ! Yesterday at 2pm I had to knock off work as it was just too hot ,by 10 pm a nice welcome rain was falling ,rain on the old tin roof has to be one of my favourites ,so I was looking forward to bed .As I went to bed ,around mid-night ,I looked out the window and BLOW-ME-DOWN it's snowing ,so I decide to put a photo on facebook before I go to bed ,well BLOW-ME-DOWN the power goes off ,and whose only torch is in the car !Anyway I'm only in bed 10minutes and BLOW-ME-DOWN a huge poplar branch lands on the roof ,so I hide under the blankets ,but it's not long before I hear another crash ,and then another ,the weight of the snow on the fully leafed trees is just too much ! it's a bit like being in Kabul ,but I manage to keep myself in bed and even get a little sleep .About 6 I decide to get up and survey the damage ,unusually the snow has FROZEN ,it is not your lovely chrystaline powder stuff from the winter but hard and course and weighing everything down to the ground ,the place is like a disaster zone ,I would say that 20% of the trees were damaged in some way or other ,the very little ones were OK and the very big ones ,but the middle sized ones were most vulnerable .The evergreens were obviously OK ,but the deciduous just couldn't handle it .My French WWOOFer and I have spent the afternoon cutting the tops out of damaged trees and making bonfires .
Now nobody was killed or injured ,no property was lost ,but I still felt a great sense of loss as I am on first-name terms with most of my trees ,and on those that have a particular owner ,I feel more grief . The good side is ,is that they will grow away again ,with probably MORE vigour than before, and make a more unusual shaped tree ,but it will take that much longer ,and I don't have 'that much longer'.!! I find it most ironical to be punished by SNOW in the middle of SUMMER.All sympathetic words will be greatfully received .Tomorrow the sun will shine and we will picnic in Naseby ,but there will be one less cocky sylvanite in Central Otago .Life is great !!