The Beauty of Snow

Lite freezing rain fell in the early AM hours, leaving behind a cool ice crystal-like effect on the tree limbs, plants and other hard surfaces. And the lack of much wind today made it possible to walk around and check out the front and back yard, shoot a few photos, and then put out a bowl of water for the greedy birds flocking to my back yard to fill up on the birdseed I scattered liberally around the yard and into the bird feeders. 

 My neighbors probably shook their heads at the sight of me (in flip flops no less) scooping up snow and ice off the sidewalks and drive ways to dump the piles into the flower beds. Snow is fabulous in that it melts slowly and thus the moisture is absorbed gently and deeply into the ground. 

 And, unlike the water that comes from the sprinklers and hose, the melted snow doesn't contain hard minerals the way our hard water does. I also collected a plastic tub full of snow in order to have  water later this week to dump on the garden beds. I live in a semi-arid area that has been in severe drought for 4 years. When rare rain or snow falls, the buckets and tubs for capturing the water comes out. Free water is nothing to sneeze at, especially with our water rates raising every few years.

Old Man Winter returns

Today Old Man Winter returned to West Texas with a vengeance, dropping over 4 inches of snow in the city of Lubbock alone before 10 am. North of Lubbock received even more snow. Schools, many businesses, public libraries, and city offices were closed for the day. The inconvenience of all the snow will eventually be greatly appreciated in the form of moisture once it melts.

This area of West Texas finally got off of the national drought chart's abnormally dry ranking.

What's the drought been like? Lubbock's normal annual rainfall is between 18-24 inches.
2011 - 5.86 inches
2012 -11.43 inches
2013 - 12.61 inches
2014 - 22.56 inches

Fingers crossed in 2015 we will continue to receive normal rainfall and not fall back into the drought cycle.

Meanwhile, I'm rather bummed that the cold has killed off the flower blossoms on my 2 year old plum tree. The daily yo-yoing of temperatures in January-February from freezing to summer warmth is normal and unfortunately causes plants and trees, especially fruit trees, to start leafing out far too early. Guess there will be no plums again this year. All the rose bushes were heavily leafing out too but those will rebound by late spring. Ah, well, some moisture, even if it's ice cold, is better than none at all.

Snow Day

So apparently reports of an early spring were a bit premature. From a nice 60 degrees early yesterday we are now at 28 degrees and it's still snowing. Schools and colleges have been cancelled so much of the area is enjoying a snow day at home. We were at the southern edge of this blizzard. I imagine Amarillo and cities north of that have seen 2-3 times the snow we've received.

View from the living room window. At 10 am it's still snowing hard and the wind's a whipping.

Symon, my 13 year old half siamese half tabby, is frisky today and chasing his tail and toys around the room. He can't figure out why he can't see anything through the bottom halves of the windows which are snow covered though.

I just hope all the ranuculas (Persian Buttercups) survive this latest round of freezing cold. Everytime they start poking out of the ground and greening up the cold kills the new growth. Also found the California poppy seeds my co-worker gave me back in the fall and will scatter those this weekend when the temperatures go back to the more tolerable 60s ranged.