Our good start came crashing down around us yesterday.  Winter Storm Elliot came bustling through our area, and while most of the country was left buried in snow in its wake, we warmed up to 50*F and had the strangest winter storm I can remember.  Hurricane force wind gusts, inches of rain, severe thunderstorm alerts, and temperatures plunging into the teens to single digits overnight.  We've lost most of our snow pack and everything froze.  

 

Friday morning, December 23rd

Saturday morning, December 24th

Once again, thousands are without power.  The winds from this storm came from the southwest, when typically they come from the northeast.  Trees toppled, limbs fell, and low areas flooded.  What a mess.  Thankfully for us the bitter cold is nowhere near as bad as it is in the Midwest right now.  And the long range forecast?  Well, there's another oddity.

I can only hope that things will settle into a more normal pattern in the latter part of winter. 

Now that's what I call a good start.

 

 Our first good storm of the 2022-23 winter, and it was a doozie.  It snowed from around 7 a.m. on Friday morning until about noon on Saturday.  At 6 a.m. Saturday morning I measured 14 1/2 inches of heavy, wet snow.  We probably had another two inches fall after that.  Thousands lost power and cleanup was insane.  The ground wasn't quite frozen, so many dirt and gravel driveways are a complete mess after being plowed.  Thankfully we had power back after six hours, but in the meantime I re-learned how to start my generator and actually used it to power the mini-split and a few other items.  The day before the storm I remembered that I had started to replace the chute deflector cable on my snowblower back in the spring but never completed the job, so there's another skill I quickly mastered.  Happy to say the old snowblower is still working perfectly!  

Most of the snow arrived overnight, so here's what I woke up to. 

So festive!

...oh my.

Well then.

My poor little birch trees!

 Once it stopped snowing the sun came out and temperatures rose.  Snow came off the trees and roofs in earnest, and everything melted a little.   This morning it's all froze up and would have made for a great base if the next storm brings the initial 6 to 10 inches of snow they were predicting, unfortunately now it looks like our pre-Christmas storm will be mostly rain, thanks to temperatures rising to 50F.  

While that might not be the best outlook for skiing or other winter activities, it will make heeling in my new baby trees easier.  

I sent in a $20 donation to The Arbor Day Foundation and in return received these little gems.  5 Norway Spruce, a White Flowering Dogwood, an Eastern Redbud, 3 crab apples, and two hydrangea.  Hard to believe there are twelve trees in that bag.  Even harder to believe frozen ground and over a foot of snow are "optimal planting conditions" for my zone.😒  If the weather does get that warm, I'm thinking I might heel them in against the foundation of the house, as that would be the only diggable soil.  We'll see.

I'll end this post with some wild and not-so-wild critters out in the weather.  Like the porcupine who has been living in the old horse barn.  He appeared at dusk near the bird feeders and waddled his way through the snow to mom's big barn.

And the goldfinch who decided to wear a snowflake as a hat.

The mules were out and about - the snow would have been almost up to Flea's belly, but I did snowblow parts of their paddock.

I've recently begun feeding a pair of resident crows.  I throw soaked cat kibbles, shelled peanuts, and mealworms out for them.  They didn't show up yesterday, but I was happy to see some bluebirds were taking advantage of the feast; I think they were after the mealworms.

And all was well on the farm. 😊