the first snow!

We woke up to the first snowfall of the season this past Saturday . I love waking up to the first snow. It's always so quiet, and beautiful, and the sight of everything blanketed in white instantly transports me into the new season; my thoughts turn to the holidays, cozy nights indoors sharing bottles of wine with good friends, baking, hot mugs of tea, game nights, hearty home-cooked meals, playing in the snow with our snow-crazy dog, ice-skating, and everything that's attached to the early winter season. Of course, in two months I am going to be cursing the very snow I am waxing poetic about right now, and I (along with the entire Northern United States) will be very ready for spring and warm weather, but right now I am enjoying the seasonal change. We'd been lulled into a warmth-coma by the unusually warm fall we'd been having (last week it was in the high 50's), and I had actually started to let myself believe that maybe, just maybe, winter wouldn't arrive until January this year. Ha!

Here is what the beautiful crab apple tree in the backyard looked like on Saturday morning:

Here is what our entire backyard looked like:

Here is a picture I took, from the front porch, at about 10:35 am:

Isn't that a lovely tree? Now, here is that very same view at about 10:42 am:

It was a very heavy and wet snow that fell, and apparently this tree was fairly hollowed out with rot, and the weight of the first snow was too much for it to bear. Luckily, there were no cars parked on that side of the street that morning. This is the second large tree that's fallen near our house this year - Kevin and I have a theory that the trees are laying down in protest over the fact we had a large pine tree cut down from our front yard last fall. The trees are angry. It took the city an entire day to get out to our block to remove this tree that was blocking the street; I'm pretty sure that the public works crews were out working all day (and all night) on Saturday, as this first snowstorm wreaked its share of havoc, in the form of fallen branches and trees, and damaged power lines. At five o'clock yesterday morning we woke up to the sound of the crew and their chainsaws working on the tree out front. All part of a Minnesota winter, folks. 

I am very excited, and relieved, that it finally started snowing, because I have promised my entire family (all Texans and Californians) a white Christmas. They have visions of a storybook holiday - complete with snowmen, ice-skating, and snowball fights, I am sure - dancing around in their heads, and I really would have hated to disappoint them. Phew!