January Thaw

The lovely blanket of snow that covered the garden has slowly been shrinking because of warming temperatures up into the fifties.  Still, yesterday quite a bit of snow remained in the garden.

Warm temperatures and overnight rain caused most of the snow to vanish .

The snow left the stone paths and walls first.  Only a few plants were peeking out of the snow that remained on the planting beds.  This is how the inside of the stone square looked yesterday.

Today only a few traces of snow remain. It's a perfect opportunity to walk in the garden and see what has been going on with the plants under the snow.

This is one of the long stone paths in the vegetable garden.  Here again the snow left the stone paths first.

Most of the snow here vanished overnight as well.  The snow in the distance remains because with the north facing hill at the end of the garden that area is not in contact with direct sunlight.  A January thaw is quite common here.  It can be a very useful.   It clears the roads and driveways making travel easier.  It gets rid of the ugly dirty snow.  It gives the the river a chance to get rid of some of the runoff to lessen springtime flooding.  But it also leaves my plants uncovered subject to frost heave  and melts the kid's snow men.  Perhaps if we are lucky, this will be a quick thaw and my nice blanket of snow will return soon.