Well, we finally got some real snow in my hometown of Austin, Texas. If you have followed my blogs over the years, you know that one of the good things of living here is that we don’t get a real winter in the accepted sense of the word. For us, our Fall season extends most of the way into the Spring season with the occasional drop in temperature that might last for a few days. We sometimes even get a frost ot two just to make the outdoor life interesting but none of this lasts for very long. Any one of these frosts is usually enough to knock down all of last years vegetation in the garden which then involves a major cleaning and raking which has to be done in a very short window of time before things start to regrow. After any of these cold snaps, usually, a couple of days later, the thermometer is hovering around the 50-60 degree mark.
All of that changed on January 10 at least for a couple of days. It almost reminded me of my time back in New York State where I lived for ten years after I first landed on these shores back on March 13, 1977. It didn’t take more than one winter up there to make me realize that I just don’t like all of the snow and cold weather and that was not counting the thirteen inches of wet snow that we got the first evening of landing on these shores. Even so, it still took ten years to eventually make the move to a warmer state, in this case, Texas. Now, I have been here for forty four years and find as I grow older that not only do I dislike any form of winter, I also have problems putting up with the constant one hundred degree heat of the Texas summers. You just can’t please some people.
This last batch of snow continued all day long and was of the very wet kind. The temperature never did get below freezing staying around the 34-35 degree mark. If it had, we would have been in real trouble as most Texas drivers have no clue when it comes to driving in wintry conditions. Not only that, as far as I know, Travis County does not have any snow moving devices. Eventually, it stopped snowing and we ended with about three inches of the sticky wet stuff.
The dogs had never seen snow before and were reluctant to go outside until I went out with them. Then they romped around and generally had a good time. Sandy, not treating this any different to any other day, demanded that we go walkies late the afternoon and that is when I took the video. It was quite impressive to see such a wintry scene in Austin, Texas.
By the following day, all that remained were a few patches here and there. The rest had melted and given the soil a much needed drink. The next day, you would never know we had any snow as it was all gone although many of the plants looked pretty bedraggled and beaten down under the weight of the snow. It looks like it still means that I will have to get out there and cut everything back before the Spring growth starts.
So ended our couple of days of a real winter. BTW, that was the first snow that we have had to talk of in several years. We sometimes get a light dusting but to us, three inches is a major storm,
Written 01/19/2021
