The Nick of Time

Yesterday's industriousness came just in the nick of time.  Last night we had a generous dollop of snow.

The work of yesterday was to take this

and this (front yard)

and this (side yard)

and turn it into this (front yard)

and this (side yard).

The work of mother nature last night was to take that and turn it into this (front)

and this (side).  

The blizzard was what the weatherman calls a "classic nor'easter".  We can tell that because our front walk is cleared by the howling wind and our side walk gets a drift to make up for it.  The houses across the street got drifts on their front walks and they have beautiful (dramatic) cakes of snow all over the fronts of the houses, too.  

There is a certain magic encapsulated in those photographs which is not obvious to the casual observer, but in the days before we had blow-in insulation, snow never built up against the side of the house.  It would always melt for a few inches around the perimeter.  For me, there are few more trenchant illustrations of how wonderfully effective the insulating has been.  (Of course, the 15% reduction in our oil use is nice, too.... probably it will be an even greater reduction this winter because we've done a little more sealing and we're not keeping the house as warm as we did last year.)

The sweary one's brother came over yesterday and saw the lovely corkscrew tree trunk and was clearly appalled.  "What happened to your tree?"  We tried to explain, but I think that as a non-gardener he left perplexed.  I hope the boughs are doing good service protecting the following from the perils of the wind and snow.  I'm also hoping that the darkness will convince them (finally) to give it a rest.  There are an awful lot of little shoots popping out of the dirt.

Last, but not least, let's hope 2009 is a good year filled with good growth.