why I want snow

We got a dusting of snow today. We can only hope for more. Some of my new gardening blog friends from warmer climes wondered why I hope for snow. Well, I worry about my plants. We've been lucky enough to have what should be annuals go native on us. They will freeze out without a cover of snow. Snow waters my garden in the spring. I rest more comfortably with my plants resting under a blanket of insulating snow. I have spent my entire life in the rust belt. It snows in the rust belt. Whether it's back in Chicago or in our new home in Cleveland, there should be snow in December. Not your world-grinds-to-a-halt kind of snow, though some of my students pray for that kind of snow every day from November to April. Just a nice blanket of snow that covers all the plants. A shortened snow season is part of the same puzzle that brings drought to Australia, and less ice in the Arctic. Now I'm not trained on any of the things I just ranted about, but it just feels that the world is out of whack when it doesn't snow in December.

And you know, I just had to put a picture in the post.