Snowtober (Octsnowber?)

As predicted, we got a significant snowfall today. Our four-or-so inches (according to the tops of the cars) was considerably less than the eight to twelve they were calling for last night, but I'm seeing photos on Facebook of as much as nine inches not far from us.

We were lucky enough to keep our power on through it all, although I'm also hearing reports of lots of outages around the area from trees down on power lines.

Since the temperature is right around freezing, this is a very wet, heavy snow, and most of the trees still have their leaves on them, which greatly increases the amount of snow-catching surface area. All that adds up to a lot more weight on the trees than in your typical winter storm, and a lot more downed limbs.

We lots a few branches - including a couple of big ones - on one of our lilac trees, but its low and has nothing under it, so that will just be an inconvenience to clean up, no harm done.

When we saw that, though, I did go out and move my car from underneath the big tree in the front yard, just in case!

Despite the forecasts, we really didn't believe it was going to happen until we saw it coming down this morning, so we hadn't told Peeper anything about it ahead of time.

I was so torn this morning, when she whispered to Shrike, "I want to get up. Wet's wet Mama sweep." because I really wanted to stay in bed, but I also really wanted to see her reaction. I figured Shrike could tell me about her reaction.

Of course, she's loving it. She's been outside to play in it four times, I think. I managed to avoid two of those trips, once because I was still in bed, and once because I was cooking lunch. Thank you, Shrike, for taking the cold, wet duty!

Four inches on the cars.

This just does not seem right.

This is the lilac tree with the downed limbs. Some of the ones that are touching the ground are just weighted down and should spring back up when the snow is off of them, but a couple are broken off.

She had a great time in the snow.

Giving her "snowman" (such as he is) a kiss.