october surprise

And no, not the political pre-election kind :)

Snow! Very early-in-the-season snow!


An icy leaf

I woke up early (like 4-ish) this morning because I heard something crash outside and realized that it was snowing. Still too dark to see what the crash was and, with that bear still around, I wasn't going outside to investigate. I'm not crazy. But now that it's light enough to see I figured out what it was. Half of one of the old apple trees in the yard is lying on the ground. Between the apples and the snow, the weight was just too much for it. And while I was out checking the damage I saw part of a tree go down up in the woods. I shook snow off the lilac because the branches were dragging on the ground but no real damage there. Not sure what else we'll lose today - it's the really heavy wet kind of snow.


The fallen apple tree

I was trying to remember the last time we had snow this early and it was a long time ago. We do get flurries sometimes in October but not a several-inches kind of snow and we're due for 3 to 5 inches today. Good thing I did all those errands yesterday and can stay home today. I have two dozen tissue cozies on my work table that need to be done this week!

first snow

Just enough to dust the leaves of the rhodedendrons with white...



Aha, but here's what the five inches that fell later and during the night looks like...



Now I wonder if I'll be getting to the post office today after all :)

white out

This is what 15 inches of snow looks like. Our first real storm this winter, and all within a 24 hour period! I had the snowblower out twice yesterday because I figured I'd have more trouble the deeper the snow got. To the right in the picture is the corner of the screened porch and the snow is almost up to the part where the screen starts. Yikes! The pictures are from this morning and you can see more of them on my Flickr page.

By last night I was exhausted and freezing cold—you know that feeling that you just can't get warm. I curled up on the couch near the woodstove, with a blanket and my two cats curled up near my feet. Very cozy. And I finished one book—Skylight Confessions by Alice Hoffman (love her stuff) and started another—The Saffron Kitchen by Yasmin Crowther (a first novel for her). Good thing I got to the library this week!