Snow

Winter came back yesterday. The temperatures dropped, and we had periods of snow instead of rain.

Afternoon snow shower--if you look carefully, you can see streaks of white

In the evening, I looked out to something coming down right lively. I thought it might be pea-sized hail.

It had been so nice and warm that Terry turned the outside spigots on early. Before he went to bed last night, he had to turn the faucet under the deck on just a tad so it would drip all night. For my readers in perpetually warm places, the running water prevents the pipe from freezing. Frozen pipes burst. Burst pipes mean water everywhere and emergency calls to plumbers ($$$).

When I went out to do the chicken chores this morning, I was greeted by an ice garden. It was beautiful in the early morning sun.

The faucet is next to the pillar supporting the top of the stairs. Wind blew the dripping water out into the yard.

I’m not sure how it happened. I will conjecture that as each drop splattered on the ground, the wind bore the spray away from the house. Meters away, in fact. Admire, if you will, how much water was able to accumulate on each blade of grass. I was amazed.

Look at how much ice grew on each blade of grass!

Some of the snow/hail was still on the grass and in the garden. Hilda and I disagree about the nature of the precipitation. I think hail because the balls were too big for snow; she says, “rabbit snow, because it’s not ice.” We actually did not do an in-depth study of the pellets. They might have been white ice. It’s gone now, and it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that the garlic was undamaged by the frost.

Garlic and hail/rabbit snow

The rhubarb is also maturing regardless of the cold. It won’t be long before rhubarb coffee cake!

Rhubarb

Hilda and I found pussy willows on our morning walk today.

Pussy willows with pollen-producing anthers (yellow)

Some of Terry’s trees are budding as well. This is dappled willow.

Dappled willow catkins

The ramps are not spreading like we hoped, but two plants came up and are looking robust. Perhaps they will sucker next year.

Ramps

Trout lilies are also among the slackers. Three leaves have come up. Like the ramps, they are supposed to clone themselves.

The mottled leaves are trout lilies. The scalloped leaves are the ubiquitous garlic mustard

Yesterday, Terry asked me what I would think if he used the rocks that he dug out of Kate’s landscaping under the deck. (Kate preferred plants to the rock bed that came with her townhouse, which is a little odd, as I think about it now, because she is a geologist. I guess there are limits.)

“If you do that,” I replied, “I won’t be able to get my feed muddy when I take out the compost.”

He got to work, and now it looks quite beautiful. His larger goal is to control the runoff from the slope under the deck so it doesn’t flood the patio. We hope it works.

Rocks beneath the deck for better drainage

On Tuesday, we decided to support our local economy by ordering pizza and wings from Angelo’s. We’d had dinner there once, but not pizza. The pizza was good! I was not impressed with the wings. They were not spicy, nor a good value. Kudos to Angelo’s, though, for not packing their take-out in Styrofoam!

 

Angelo's pizza and wings in a paper bag (front left)