First Snow In October

Was sitting quietly reading "Next Tuesday" http://yaccessibilityblog.com/wp/tag/assistance-dog (highly recommended) to the strains of Il Volo last evening when Miss Alice woke up from a snooze and dashed to the deck windows to gaze up into huge flakes of snow falling outside. It was dark so difficult to get a picture since I'm such an amateur photographer. Snow looks more like rain in the photo. Kept snowing until I went to bed approximately 4 hours later. Didn't think it would stick but it was still on the ground the next morning....with only the pavement melted off.

It snowed for a couple of hours again this afternoon, but it was only a fine sifting type snow. However, there was a thin skin of ice on the lake this morning. So with the thin layer of snow on top, it made the lake look as tho it was solidly frozen...NOT. Float planes could still land if they wanted to use their floats as ice breakers since ice was thin enough it wouldn't cause float damage.

Saw a huge Vee of geese lifting off the lake yesterday heading into the sunset. Guess they knew the lake might freeze that night. Our's is a shallow lake and higher up the mountain, so it gets colder faster than nearby water bodies.

Another sign that winter is upon us....While out running errands earlier today, a big moose loped long-leggedly across the road in front of me.....still sporting a huge rack. So, they are coming down from the upper hillside a few weeks early.

As I drove down off our hill, the open fields in the Valley were mostly clear of snow except in shadow. The mountains were standing proudly against the clear blue sky, with the setting sun slowly turning the freshly snowed slopes the color of strawberry ice cream .

We don't usually get our first real snow until around the 1st of November. Hard to believe that's only 2 weeks away.

Such a fast year this has been.