Saturday Photo: Not a Partridge in a Pear Tree, But Snow!

Tuesday winter began, with snow and wind. After a warm fall the trees have been tardy in shedding their leaves, and the pear trees in our little back yard still have theirs. I had planned on doing the last garden cleanup today, raking up the last of the leaves, cutting back the asters that I'd let go to seed and sprinkling all the other seeds that I'd saved from rudebackia and other plants when I began the clean up earlier.

But it snowed more during the week, and there now are about three inches of snow on the ground with the temperature hovering around -9 C this morning. The forecast is for temperatures above freezing early in the week, so perhaps I can do all the last minute work later.

The leaves still are clinging tenaciously to the pear trees, though: the picture was taken on Tuesday and there has been little change, aside from the deeper snow. No partridges so far, although a flocklet of migrating somethings descended on the grape (festooned on the garage in the left of the photo) and stripped it of all the grapes that remained.