Ho Ho Ho, Merry X..., I Mean Merry February!

Today we had snowfall, heavy snowfall, freezing drizzle and slush. I had snow on my glasses, droplets on my glasses when the snow melted, dirt on my boots, slush on my boots, slush on my jeans, dirt on my jeans, snow on my coat, snow on my beanie and so on. Welcome to winterland! ❄️☃️

Yes, it is the first day of February and winter begins here. We've had some light snow for the last few days, but the amount of snow was not enough to be taken seriously. This morning the weather forecast said all those things that I mentioned above and it happened. You can guess what I did next, I suppose.

Yes, I went out for a photo shoot, to capture the occasion as I know how rare snow is these days.

The main destination was the park, but I had two places I wanted to check and this was one of them. Unfortunately I knew what I was going to see and here it is, exactly what I expected.

This is the Japanese quince, Chaenomeles japonica a shrub that starts its cycle with flower buds, early, then after the flowers are done, leaves grow. When I say early, I mean March, April, definitely not February, but with this climate change, this year we had a very warm, winter, not long ago the daily max temperature was over 10°C, which should not happen during winter.

These low temperatures are confusing nature and buds are starting to grow, then this happens. There comes snow accompanied by low temperatures. Some buds may survive, while others don't. I'm not sure how this beautiful Japanese quince is affected by this snow and cold, time will tell.

This photo was taken almost a week ago, when it was almost hot outside. I was looking at the buds, thinking it's way too early for this to happen, but mother nature is its own person, so there' nothing we can do.

Another bud covered in snow. I don't know what this plant is, but most likely snow is not welcome at this phase of budding.

My next stop was at the magnolia tree. I've been planning to go to the park to see what the magnolia is doing these days, see if it had buds already, but never had the time. Now you can see there are buds already, although not huge.

The good thing about Magnolia is that the buds are not naked. What you see on the photo, that hairy thing is the pod of the bud, which will fall off when the buds start to open. This serves as a coat and as you can see, it is much needed. In my opinion the magnolia is not in danger.

Would have been nice to have this snow in December, but the universe had different plans for us.

This is the rose hanging from the bower.

Someone already walked over the snow, but as it was still snowing, the footprints were already covered.

This is my favorite place in the park, but I rarely see it covered by snow. It's a beauty when all the flowers are growing, but it's even nicer now, that is covered by snow.

It was overcast unfortunately, but sunny weather doesn't happen when it's snowing, so the photos are as they are.

Look at how much snow is accumulated on that branch.

After lunchtime snowing stopped, at the time of writing the temperature is around zero, so let's see how much is going to remain of this snow.

Sooooo, snow anyone?

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