Could it Be? Or Could it Not Be?....

My vote is for "not" so far as this whole spring business is concerned.  Yesterday we had rain, hail, and a snow shower... followed by sunshine bright enough that it caused quite a few prangs on the highway during peak hour.

Then this morning, this is what greeted us....

Oh well.  At least it was a beautiful sunrise.... You'd think I would have learned by now that the winters here are always reluctant to had over to spring, but apparently not.

So Much for Spring?

Well, after all my excitement about planting peas and and sunshine, here's what greeted us on Saturday...

Eighteen centimetres of snow in the foothills! We got about three or four centimetres in the valley. Fortunately it had pretty much melted on the valley floor by noon and today (Tuesday), I spent a good hour or so outside digging in the dirt. Yay! Now that we have switched to daylight savings hours it doesn't get dark until after 8pm, so I get to play outside.

I am thrilled beyond belief with the amount of earthworms I have - I was digging up spadesfull of them! This also means that I have murdered a few... glad to get that out of the way. The first murder is always unpleasant.

I'm almost (but not quite) hoping for a late hard frost to knock the blossom off my apricot tree so it isn't quite so prolific, but I think I'd rather this glorious weather continue. Perhaps I should just have a chat with the neighbourhood squirrels and birds to let them know they're welcome to as many apricots as they can get their furry little paws and busy beaks around.

In the meantime, I have bulbs popping up all over, the crocus are in full bloom, and my johnny jump-ups have their first flowers. Spring is definitely one of the joys of living in this part of the world.

And, all things being equal, I will FINALLY get to plant my peas this week.... once I've dug all the onion grass out of my raised beds.

First Snow of the Season

On December 7, we got our first "proper" snow of the season - which is to say that snow fell, fell some more, and then didn't immediately melt. Daniel took some photos in our yard for you to look at...

This is the crabapple tree we planted a few years ago when we first bought the house. Those wee little apples make a nice frozen treat for the squirrels.

This is a cypress or juniper or somesuch tree that's growing up in our fence line. I haven't had the heart to cut it down.

Here's our apricot tree... it really will come back in the spring!

And last, but not least, snow on our snowberry bush, which is a native shrub of this area. I hope you can see the individual snowflakes around the edges (they're the fuzzy-looking things). We don't often get fluffy snow, but it's a treat when we do.