Monday, April 5, 2010

April Showers

We woke up this morning to four inches of fresh snow. They say Eskimos are supposed to have lots of different words for snow, but so do I (no, and not those kinds of words, either).

When I lived in Leadville Colorado, the high altitude and below-zero temperatures would produce the famed champagne powder - a light, fluffy snow, so dry it wouldn't even pack into snowballs. But in April in Nevada, we get Sierra cement - sloppy, wet, heavy stuff. Pack this stuff, and you have slushballs.

Luckily, cold temperatures have kept the trees and bushes from leafing out much as of yet. Most of my trees bear the scars from May snowfalls. The only casualties so far this Spring have been the earliest apricot and forsythia blooms. And we do need the water. Our 7 inches annual precipitation almost all comes in the form of snow, so it's now or never for this year.

2 comments:

Lorie said...

I know how discouraging it can be when you are ready for spring. But it is beautiful.

Melynda@Scratch Made Food! said...

Waking up to snow as the season progresses to spring is a surprise. Good thing it looks so pretty, because it can upset the gardening schedule.