September Surprise

It's a good thing I took the pictures I posted last Friday because by this Wednesday we had 35 cm (14 inches) of wet, heavy glue-like snow on everything. The trees haven't even begun to put on fall colours yet, everything is still green and in full leaf, so the snow settled on branches and leaves not designed to carry such loads. There are branches, limbs and entire trees down all over town, and many people were left without power because falling trees took down power lines. 

The lower branches of the crabapple and plum trees outside were weighed down right to the ground. The shrubs and flowers went higgeldy-piggeldy in all directions, laid flat by the snow. 

There's a slender tree, about seven and a half meters (25 feet) tall, a volunteer of indeterminate parentage, right in the corner at the entrance.  Looking out the window I could see it was bent almost in half by the weight. When the wind came I could see that tree was going to snap, so I quickly threw on my jacket and gloves, grabbed the broom and went downstairs. I used the broom to knock as much snow off the lower branches as possible, getting a lot of snow down the back of my neck in the process. But I couldn't reach the upper branches, so I grabbed the trunk, which is only about the size of a round metal fencepost in a chain link fence, and I shook it. I definitely got snowed on! But the tree returned to its upright position. 

I then went over and knocked the snow off the worst of the crabapples branches, and having done in my arms, came up for my morning coffee. 

The trees look none the worse for wear thankfully. I haven't even seen any broken branches. But my echinacea are fallen warriors. The Ligularia is broken in half, but the hostas have sprung back and a little mini rose bloomed under the snow and since the snow has now melted it is smiling like nothing even happened. You couldn't go wrong emulating that little rose. It takes a kicking and keeps on blooming.