Robin Shelly, made this comment.

My new found old friend that don’t remember, made this comment. (Sorry, I’m Sure I will remember when we meet again. She must have been to young to notice when I lived in Laytonville. I always liked older girls)

“Sometimes during a real cold spell in Laytonville, your uncle Ben would set a sprinkler on one of his bare trees near the highway overnight &, by morning, the thing would be covered with huge & beautiful sparkling icicles. It would literally stop traffic! We ran a picture of it in the newspaper more than once, I think.”
Robin Shelly.

I hope you don’t mind that I make a posting out of your comment, but I do remember him doing that. He would spend a good part of the night getting the water flow just right. Too much water and it would melt, not enough and it wouldn’t make icicles. I’ll bet my cousin Penny has some photos. I’ll see if I can get her to post them.
Uncle Ben discovered how to make an icicle tree by accident. As you may know, Ben had a sawmill about four miles north of Laytonville, back in the Fifties. On really cold nights they had to keep the water running to the water tower, to keep the pipes from freezing. The water cooled the saws when the mill was running during the day. There was about a twelve foot fir tree that grew beside the tower, and the overflow would splash on one of the tower crossbeams spaying the tree with mist. It was on of the most beautiful sights that one could ever see when the sun shined through it. It was pure and clean, and just plain beautiful. My uncle Ben decided that the only way to tell people how pretty it was, was to make his own tree next to the highway. He really enjoyed watching people screech to a stop, back up and take a picture. It was as pretty as a crystal chandelier.