True to Form

Statistically, Alberta gets the highest amounts of snow in March, and we are running true to form here this year.  Snow started falling yesterday morning about 9 a.m. and fell throughout the day and through last night also.  About 8:30 this morning I went out the back door to do some shovelling, and this is what it looked like.

That's a cedar wrapped in burlap for the winter to protect it from wind and sun scald.  The area in front of it is part of the back patio, just flat paving, but the piles of snow from shovelling are starting to add up!

At 8:30 the snow was still coming down and there was a lot of wind, blowing it around into some pretty impressive drifts.  I doubted that I could get the car out of the driveway, and if the storm continued, we'd be snowed in for sure.  So I made some phone calls and cancelled the violin lessons that I was scheduled to teach today.

Fifteen minutes later the snow stopped.  The sun struggled to break through the overcast, only partially successful.  It wasn't very cold, about       -8ºC.  The snowplows went past on the road a few times, and I started to feel pretty foolish.  It wouldn't have been so hard after all!

Then S. arrived at 10 a.m. to work in the greenhouse transplanting pansies and petunias.  She drove a little way into the driveway with her four-wheel drive vehicle and decided to park it right there before she got in too deep.

I went out to the greenhouse, and on the way discovered that the driveway was covered with at least a foot of heavy, wet snow.  In places the wind had piled it up in 2 to 3 foot drifts.  I guess I was right to cancel after all!

Now around 4 p.m. the sun is out shining brightly. The world glistens with beauty. These trees with their ice-covered branches are glowing like crystal.

The forecast for the rest of the week is fine with warming trends and sun in store.

We're very happy to have this moisture-laden snow.  In many ways it's better than rain because it will melt and sink into the ground, and run into the dugout to provide water for irrigation of our landscape next summer.  We need the moisture badly as we had very little rain last summer and ended the season with very dry soils.