This Ain't Fall...

woke up this morning to "snow showers..."

A week ago these were bright red.

The weather prophets have been saying this will be a snowy long cold winter. Frankly I don't need it after the years I lived in North Dakota.

This is a shot of the front yard area.

It is pretty, though. Can't be as bad as ND???

The winter in ND has a stark beauty. Potentially dangerous but beautiful. The temperatures can be extreme but it is the length of the winter, close to 7 months, that can be draining. Surprising enough, one can learn to live with 45 below temperatures.

Linuxogre, It looks beautiful to me even though it is early. I'm still planting bulbs. I absolutely hated last year when it was too warm to use the fireplace and there was no snow.

Linuxogre, Trade ya! that's mild compaired to what we got last night. More to come and this was on top of what we got before.

This is my watergarden.

Took this this afternoon when it started snowing again.

Don't you love that lake effect? My wife is a native Clevelander and pretty much told me the same thing when she looked out the window yesterday. Snow is OK as long as it has the good manners to be gone in a day. In ND the first snow in early October was still on the ground until mid April.

My basic discomfort with the white stuff probably is a holdover from my misspent youth in Southern California.

Still, I have to admit it is pretty (so long as you don't have to shovel or drive in it).

I am 1+ hour east of Cleveland. Had my first ever fender bender 2 weeks ago. New car so was not sure how it would handle in ice and sluch, getting sand bags for the trunk. There were a lot of traffic accidents so far this season and we are just starting.
I am gun shy about driving now, almost to the poing of making myself sick. Boss offered to come get me and take me back home, it's about 25 minutes one way. We don't have public transpertation in this neck of the woods.
I'd never make it in ND, so I'm scratching that off my list of retirement states LOL

I've never been to ND either but would love to go there sometime, Think it will be a summer vacation. LOL
Lady we had accidents everywhere here last night. We didn't get a lot of snow but the roads were wet. Everything came together just about the time everyone was heading home, darkness falling, the temp falling and the black ice. The roads were grid locked for hours and many accidents. Some people in a more than 2hr grid lock just turned on their 4 ways and abandoned their cars. It's only about 28 here this morning and I hear the cold will be here for a while but the sun is shining and the house is getting much warmer. Temp inside came up about 8 degrees in the 2 hours since the sun came up. Gotta love that passive solar floor in the living room.

Black ice is very serious, it is sneaky. I like having the outside temp reading on the car, but they took it a step father where it says ICE which is very unnerving to me. I know enough when the temp drops around freezing and the roads are wet to take it easy and stay away from any hard breaking. That car doesn't know when the roads are icy.
I was parked in the parking lot at work and when I turned on the car it said ICE as I started driving the outside temp reading got up to 42º. Dumb car!

Snow + ND = the scene in Fargo when the bad guy buries his loot in the snow by the snow fence on the highway. The he looks to both sides and in either direction sees flat, trackless miles of snow to the horizon. And the "sane"characters would put on huge boots coats and gloves to leave the house. It looks funny to us down by the bay where you can go almost all winter in a sweater between vehicle and building.
Fargo was pretty sick but I love Frances McDormand in it. And the funny parts. And the main bad guy, sadly can't remember that actor's name. Poor guy is odd looking but a good actor.

Didn't mean to go off topic. Did I hear more snow in western PA?

Snow in NW Pa. doesn't surprize me, right now nothing, a few flurries this morning. It depends on which way the wind is blowing off the lake and how strong. Also the temp of the lake waters. This time of year I think our weather people say snow just to be on the safe side. I try look at the big radar picture.
Keeping my fingers cross we have clear weather next Friday, Flordia here I come!!!!