Snow in April can't last, even in southeastern Michigan--the air and earth are warming, the number of daylight hours is getting longer every day and we're past the middle of April. The last frost is only a few weeks away. Anything that's up now can take whatever bad jokes Mother Nature throws at it (including snow), especially winter sown plants--they're tough as nails. It's been a very cold spring here in CT as well--I still need layers to work outside clearing winter's debris from the flowerbeds. Everything I grew last year via WS is up again: turtlehead, lupine, rudbeckia, agastache, penstemon, Siberian iris, daylily, ladybells, painted daisy, blackberry lily, butterfly bush, delphinium, Echinacea, Maltese cross, blanket flower, Montauk daisy, globeflower and more. My WS sprouts are waving at your WS sprouts and urging them to hang tough until this white stuff melts away.

David, LOL! Didn't we have fun in Tennessse! I miss you and would love to see you soon. I really wanted the front seat! I am telling all of you, it was so exciting to share snow with my Maggie. DH took a test tube of snow and froze it so Maggie would always have her "first snow" (rolling eyes). You guys, it really is a big deal that we got snow!! May (lowspark), I thought of you during the day ;-) Annie, I like our "dusting" of snow. I am not prepared for 30 inches. We would be land locked and not know what to do with ourselves.

We've waddled home now. I shouldn't have had that cup of 'decaf', so here I am while DH has turned in! Delicious dinner but too much of everything: Turkey, bread stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn pudding, green bean caserole (no, not the old fried onion thing), cranberry-tangerine relish, rolls. The dishes just kept circling the table! Really rich and buttery pumpkin cake and/or chocolate silk pie for dessert. Very nice to travel less than half an hour, almost entirely on a free-flowing expressway. Lovely to share time with DS, DIL (6 mos. PG), DGS and extended family. Monica -- Hope Thanksgiving gave you a lift. Be well!

Hi all, Measuring out on the “flattest parts” of my yard, it looks like I have about 9” of snow on the ground from this storm! When it first started the ground was warm and the first stuff was melting, so for a “real” total, I estimate at least an inch or two more than that. I was REALLY surprised when I got up this morning! Thru the whole thing, including right up to when I went to bed last nite, it had only snowed “fine” snow, and pretty lightly most of the time, and it really didn’t seem to have added up “that” much, but “overnite,” and I was up till 2:00 a.m., “something” happened, and there was a whole bunch of it out there by daylight! I shoveled the sidewalk yesterday while it was snowing—heavy stuff since it was melting on the bottom, and then a neighbor shoveled my whole driveway (which I won’t be using!) and a “shovel wide” down my whole walk, which makes it “legal!” I was out earlier and “widened” my sidewalk, and got some of the stuff left on the neighbor’s walk! I need to get exercise somehow in winter! Wonder if we’ll get any more Big Ones this year! Zach, Mr. Snow Hater, were you here the year we had a new blizzard every week for a month or more? I think it was ‘06/’07! The first one was just before Christmas, and then they just kept going. Thousands of people were “stranded” at the airport for DAYS, and they ran out of food and everything else. I think that was the storm when United “lost” an unaccompanied minor at DIA for something like four hours—and the airline didn’t even know she was missing! And there was somebody selling Genuine Colorado Snow on eBay! The buyers, of course, had to pay the shipping! The ruts in the street in front of me were a foot deep—for most of a month! Denver had DIRTY SNOW! For at least a month! Dirty Snow is a rare creature here along the Front Range! I had lived here for more than 40 years and had never seen anything like that winter! And I’m sure I never will again in this lifetime! So, Mr. Snow Hater, it COULD be worse! How much did everybody else get this time? Skybird P.S. I was composing this when you did your post, Zach!