First Snow

This morning I felt compelled to document our first snowfall of the 2014-15 season.

Though we definitely live in the "south," our area of western north Carolina most assuredly has four seasons.  I have to admit, this first snowfall took me a bit by surprise.  Oh, I knew it was forecast, but often those snowfall predictions are targeted to the higher elevations to the north of Arden.  I think that I was still in my "summer mode" from our return from Puerto Rico last weekend, because the start of our week was absolutely lovely.  On Monday we golfed in 80 degree afternoon weather (definitely short sleeves and shorts) and then on Wednesday we saw spectacular foliage color on a drive up the Blue Ridge Parkway to Pisgah Inn for lunch.  By Thursday I was looking for my jeans and something with at least longish sleeves to wear.  According to the almanac in our daily newspaper, average temperatures for this time of year should be 64/40.  This week we saw large deviations from that average in both directions!  (Yesterday's was 41/32, which surprised me because we had some pretty fierce winds throughout the afternoon and I'm sure it didn't feel like even 41 degrees.)

We had not had a hard frost at our house, so our encore azaleas and our knockout roses are still in bloom, as are a few dahlias in flower and other later season flowering plants.  Earlier this week, Russ and I had commented on the fact that we saw several clumps of iris in bloom and wondered if it was just the unseasonably warm weather that triggered that, or perhaps there is an encore version of iris, also.  My gardener experts who read this blog can let me know what they think/know about this!

Anyway, here are some photos from yesterday morning and this morning.  I tried to take roughly the same photos both days.

The one(s) on the left are obviously yesterday and on the right this morning.

I had posted this first one on Face Book yesterday.

We usually estimate the amount of snowfall by looking at the table top.  You can see there is still a little icy stuff on the tabletop this morning because it was only 29 degrees out this morning. (But it's already into the 40's and on it's way to the 60's as I write this.)

And a couple more views:

I love how this one looks almost like a black and white photo turned back to color!  You can really see those azaleas in today's photo!  

And, as you can see, the roads were completely clear.  By 9:30 AM yesterday I was driving to UNC Asheville, about a half hour drive north, to help with the Super Saturday class where members of our quilt guild are teaching beginning 8-12 year old quilters our craft.

But yesterday was a miserable weather day here, that's for sure!