A brief experience of snow

The buds of my front-yard magnolia capture snow magically.

The back-porch hummingbird feeder, a prosaic kind of object, looks much prettier against a background of snowy trees.

Snow is old news everywhere else in Canada, but in Vancouver the first big blast of winter is always an amazement. Especially when the sky turns blue the morning afterward, leaving trees full of white cotton puffs shining in the sun.

 All morning, those fluffy balls avalanched down in little explosions from the highest branches, or melted away in dripping blobs. By the end of the warmish afternoon, the magic was gone.

 The reality lingered on the ground, though, where the front sidewalk needed a double scraping and a scattering of de-icer. The bird baths are still mounds of snow, and I’ve given up clearing the back-yard paths.

Another big storm is supposed to blow through on Thursday. We’re hoping it will bring rain, not snow. If we’re lucky, just like that, our winter will be over.

A snowy wilderness in the front garden this morning....

...turned into an ordinary streetscape by the afternoon.

The back-yard hedge and witch hazel this morning ...

... looked like spring-time by the afternoon.

The raccoons make good use of our yard in the night-time, apparently. These prints were on the back-yard path.

A good day or two of rain should take care of this bench covering.

The back lane, sigh. It was garbage day, but nothing gets picked up on snow days in our area. The trucks have trouble with the hill.

Our next-door neighbour's trees looked spectacular in the morning.

This is the sidewalk  that must be cleaned by 10 a.m. every snow day. Because it is in such deep shade, the ice sticks around even when the temperatures go above zero. I shoveled it twice, then had to throw de-icer on it. 

John is a captive to his sore knee, elevated, with ice pack. He is so bored after a week in the house that he would love to be shoveling snow.