Amidst all the seriousness you’ll find in today’s paper, here’s a lighthearted list of ideas about what you can do with all those twigs and branches still sitting around in your yard after last month’s ice storm. Some of them might be useful, some just downright silly, and we hope one or two makes you laugh.

Most of all, we hope not to have another list like this for a long, long time.

1Make a

stickman.

2Recreate that scene from “The Blair Witch Project,” where all those freaky stick people are hanging in the trees. Don’t kill anybody, though, and leave the video camera at home.

3Build a raft and float down the muddy Missouri.

4Craft a lifeguard-style rescue stick and save your friends who built the raft and tried to float down the muddy Missouri.

5Make a winter shelter for the birds by putting a brush pile near a birdfeeder in your yard, recommends Dave Niebruegge, a resource forester with the Missouri Department of Conservation in Sedalia, Mo. “ ... They would make a great winter cover,” he says, and you’d probably attract many species of birds. If you live on rural property, he recommends putting the pile near the tree line to attract rabbits and quail.

6Get an inkwell and use a twig as an old-timey pen.

7Whittle.

8Make your

own toothpicks.

9Make rustic photo frames and send them to all your friends. For extra measure, include a picture inside of you making the rustic photo frame.

10Jamie Buczek, owner of Jamie’s Secret Garden, recommends placing the branches in a large urn and putting the arrangement where your Christmas tree stood. “That way it will fill in the space because you became used to something large there.” For extra sparkle, hang your snowflake ornaments, since it’s still winter, or get the kids to make some construction paper hearts and hang them for Valentine’s Day.

11As another spin on No. 10, Karen White, with the cards and party department and the candles and scent department at Hobby Lobby, suggests placing one of the branches into a pot in some foam, spray-painting the branch and hanging ornaments.

12Dig a trench in your backyard, add water, piles of sticks and then wait for the beavers.

13Find a dog. Throw the stick. The dog will bring it back, of course, but it will take your mind off of your huge stick pile.

14Find an old man and make him a walking stick.

15Redecorate your house by hot-gluing sticks onto all available surfaces. When people ask about it, tell them it’s “Ice Storm of ‘07 chic.”

16Speaking of decorating, Ms. White suggests taking some inspiration from those upside-down Christmas trees by wrapping wire around the bottom of a larger branch, hanging it from a hook and stringing it with lights for a chandelier.

17Build a

bird mansion.

18Give a snowman some arms. Or, if you’re really feeling charitable, give all the snowmen arms.

19Learn to fence,

wilderness style.

20Put an urn with sticks outside your house, Ms. Buczek recommends, and put some winter greens around the bottom for lovely winter decor.

21Gather your friends and play stickball, except don’t use balls, use acorns.

22Build a log cabin by gluing the sticks onto a cardboard box or an already made papier-mâché house, Ms. White suggests.

23Keep a stash handy in case you run out of toothbrushes.

24Use a stick as a holy poker in church, subtly letting your fellow parishioners know that no, it’s not OK to snooze during the service.

25Scratch

your back.

26Scratch

someone else’s back.

27Beat off people who walk up to you and try and scratch your back with a fallen tree branch.

28Make a still life on your mantle, Ms. Buczek says, with model deer and cotton batting for snow, then use the branches as your trees.

29Consider protecting your home with sticks near every door for beating intruders.

30Make a sign that says “This home protected by sticks.” Frame it with sticks.

31Give your daughter a few small sticks and tell her they’re tickets to a Hannah Montana concert. When she tells you they’re just small sticks, tell her that kids today have no imagination.

32Make a stickdial

and tell the time.

33Have a fondue dinner party. Tell your guests there’s a woodland theme.

34Gather the bigger branches you have and align them in a staggered circle. Call it stickhenge.

35Go to stickhenge and when you divine when the next ice storm is coming, please, let the rest of us know.