Anna and Gardner came up on Friday, the day of the storm, but we told them to stay in Hanover because the road was impassable before it was plowed. They were busy with wedding errands on Saturday and finally got to the house that evening for dinner. They were impressed by the difference in snowfall amounts.
Neighbor Steve was boiling sap on Saturday. The smoke and steam were swirling around the sugar shack.
I put on the snowshoes in the afternoon and walked the dogs across the pasture. The eight inches of new, wet, heavy snow made it a tough job. Only Maizie made it all the way out with me.
The snow sliding off the roof has made a model of the Matterhorn.
View of the house from the road, but the view from inside is disappearing.
Vanishing view.
The porch is becoming a tunnel.
Steve and Diana's sugar shack in swirling steam and smoke. That thing on top of the shack is a huge cupola that has sides that open to let the steam out. Next to the cupola is a chimney for the wood smoke. They boil the sap to reduce the volume from 40 gallons of sap to one gallon of syrup, generating a lot of steam.
Back in NJ, about two hundred miles due south of VT, there was 1.4 inches of rain. Crocuses and vinca are out in the neighborhood, but not here yet. Maples and elms are showing flowers, as is andromeda and pussy willow, snowflakes are up.
New blooms: red maple, elm, snowflake, pussy willow
Red maple flowers.
Snowflake is a cousin of snowdrop. You can see the resemblance, even though it's in a pachysandra bed.
Pussy willow.
Andromeda is always the first shrub here to flower.
Elm flowers.
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