snow arrives early after a brief silence

The first snow arrived in the Olympic Peninsula on the night of November 7th; about seven months since the last snow fell in the area this past Spring (April 10). We got about two inches in our small corner of the world, but it was 3-6 inches outside of town. The early snow also came just a few days after a windstorm that brought down trees and power lines in the area.  A few mature trees did go down in our neighborhood, but the trees I planted this year survived the storm.

The wind did sweep away the autumn leaves, including those from the cottonwood tree where a pair of eagles is nesting.  I am glad to see that their nest survived. The previous year, they lost their nesting tree in another windstorm, and that same year, lost the new nest they were building in another tree. They are now hard at work refurbishing their nest; bringing in twigs and branches and other nesting material throughout the day. I so look forward to seeing some eaglets again.  

So here we don't really have a long growing season. There was one year when I had transplanted the plants outside by mid-April and another time, when I had to do it after Mother's Day. Some plants died, and some struggled but survived till the end of the garden season. This year, by June, the average temperature was still hovering in the 50's. The same month, we went from 44°F on June 7 to 84°F on June 26. I wrote previously what odd weather we had this year.

By November, just before the cold blast, I was still talking about my last harvest of tomatoes for the nth time.  When the temperature dipped in September, I thought the tomatoes  were done, so I harvested most of the fruits and put them in the garage to ripen. The summer-like weather came back in October, and the tomatoes just kept growing, enough to climb over my trellis. I harvested several more "last tomatoes" for a few more weeks. I thought that whatever fruits we get all the way to November would just be an unexpected gift from the gods.  I am grateful for the bounty.

⚘