Snow Day!

Awoke to a couple of inches of snow and a crust of ice from the freezing rain and sleet that was intermittent with it.  But it is officially snow until Romeo carefully checks it out with his superior olfactory senses and determines that it is, indeed, SNOW!

 Between 2-3" total with the freezing rain compacting it by about half...  This in a winter that saw our average temperature in February 2017 HIGHER than any yearly average for March since records were first kept back in 1880!  Crazy.

"Yup, it's SNOW!"

Pansies and Violas

...can out last a harsh winter here, but in a mild to nonexistent one, they do right fine!

Winter Flowers

Not All The Flowers Are Dead

Been sick for the better part of a week and when I was coming around, Romeo went all lower GI explosive donut on me!  But we are both nearly better to ourselves again.

Garden Zoo Winter Sightings

Snow Day On Saturday?

Unpredicted little flush of snow....

First Wintery Storm of the Season

"Winter Poems"

Tonight's holiday book for children is a collection of poems called "Winter Poems" selected by Barbara Rogasky and illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman. The book is intentionally nonsectarian. You will find poems by Carl Sandburg, Wallace Stevens, Emily Dickinson and Edna St. Vincent Millay among the many. I will label each illustration I include here with the title and author of the poem it goes together with to further this point.

 "Something Told The Wild Geese" by Rachel Feild

"A Merry Note" by William Shakespeare 

"A Winter Piece" by William Cullen Bryant 

"Laughing Boy" by Richard Wilbur 

"Waiting For Birds" by David Kherdian

Fungus Among Us

I think fungus is honestly as beautiful as flowers.

In Search of Lichen and Moss

I have never gone to the woods and discovered anything other than loveliness.

"Over And Under The Snow"

Today's Children's Holiday Book is called "Over and Under the Snow" written by Kate Messner with lovely woodblock illustrations by Christopher Silas Neal. Holiday? you ask. Well, yes, I pulled this one in honor of Winter Solstice. It is an elegantly simple story of a father and daughter skiing through the forest and learning about how the animals survive the winter--and even how some do not. No animal is too small or humble to be considered, but in the end as night is falling they return home and tuck in for the night perchance to dream of the animals looking down upon them from the stars above. Published in 2011, still available.