early snow

Well, this was unexpected.

It started snowing around noon on Thursday and didn't finish up until mid-morning on Friday. The ground is not frozen yet, so it took until after sunset before it started accumulating, but here it is, the earliest measurable snowfall I can remember.


The kids were mightily confused. "How can it be snowing, it's still Autumn?" And not even late Autumn, when we expect this sort of thing. Snow before Thanksgiving is somewhat expected (though it doesn't happen every year by any means). Snow before Halloween? I just don't remember it (although the Meteorologists assure us this is NOT the only early snowfall we've had -- in fact, apparently there was nearly a foot of snow in the CT hills on October 4, 1987).

But certainly this is the earliest it's ever snowed in my children's memory, and I agree with them, it just doesn't seem right. Although it WAS pretty. And unusual, with most of the leaves still on the trees. In fact, since the ground was still warm, the accumulations was noticeable on the trees long before it was measurable on the ground.

The total for here was a whopping 2 inches on fenceposts and railings, maybe 3/4 inch on the ground. The animals were all pretty unfazed by it.

With the exception of the chickens, who decided that staying in bed was a better plan. Usually they come running out of the hen house when it's first opened in the morning. This time they just sort of blinked and say "Um....no thanks."

Zoo Boy clearly agreed with them. He slept in, his internal weather device letting him know that the world was on hold for a bit.

It didn't last long. By noon all of the ground-cover and most of the rest of the snow had melted, and by mid-afternoon you never would have guessed we'd been treated with an early visit from Old Man Winter.