Snow? On Memorial Day?

5-26-13 VERMONT: Would you believe snow? We got an inch last night, probably enough to kill the tender herbs that were just planted. The snow was after a day of rain, another inch. It was too wet, windy and cold to work. We did go to the auction preview at William Smith’s in Plainfield, NH, and saw old friend Beth working there as a floor manager.

The snow was gone by noon today, but it stayed cold and windy with only brief showers. I put barley straw pellets, forty pounds worth, in the pond to fight algae. The pellets slowly disintegrate, releasing small amounts of peroxide that kills algae but not anything else. After that I put up the electric fence around the veggie bed.

The herbs looked OK after the snow melted, but they may all turn brown in a few days.

The perennial beds were all slammed by the snow, of course, and everything was bent over and some stalks broken, but we won’t know how much damage was done until it warms up and stuff, that can, stands up.

Now I understand why Irving Berlin never wrote, “I’m Dreaming of a White Memorial Day.”


The newly planted herb bed in the snow.

We have often commented that the apple blossoms on the ground look like fallen snow or that wind-blown blossoms look like a snow flurry, but last night and this morning we had and have falling snow and snow on the ground.

Gus running away from Maizie's harassment. She shows no mercy.