Field of Science

First it snowed, then it leafed

Our area got about an inch of snow last evening, the first of the winter, and not so unusual for November 12.  And then the temperature dropped to 19 F (-7 C) over night. Again nothing so unusual for this time of year.  But the fall has been lingering and late, so this is rather sudden cold and a hard freeze.  TPP decided that the gardening season was over and harvested the last of the bok choi and moved a couple of small boxes of parsley indoors.  Several of our trees really never did change color, and they were holding fast to their leaves.  Only the sugar maples had really dropped most of their leaves.  But this morning if leafed.  To explain, TPP's book editor is big on parallel construction, so "snowed" "leafed"; that's parallel right?  All those leaves that were hanging on literally dropped all at once.  It was leafing hard on the back half of the estate this morning and it was kind of magical and sort of pretty; if you had stood there with a basket it would have filled pretty quickly.  It was quite a sight except for all the leaves falling into the lily pond.  A sudden leaf drop usually this happens with ginkgo trees, but these other trees not so much.  Now there's a leaf-snow-leaf sandwich on the ground that's 3-5 inches thick.  Raking season has officially begun. 

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