In Like a Lion!

March roared in like a lion on Thursday night. The first sign of trouble occurred in the early evening when extreme winds began to blast through northern Ohio. Temperatures began to drop and a mixture of rain and sleet gradually gave way to snow. Heavy, wet, sticky snow that adhered to every surface as if blasted from a snow cannon at a ski resort. I was up before dawn Friday, warming up my trusty snowblower. But I quickly found the wet snow just clogged up the intake and I wound up pushing it around like a snowplow more than throwing it. As the sun began to rise I was amazed at the scenes being revealed around me. A veritable winter wonderland emerged. I grabbed the camera and headed into the woods behind me house. The intense winds had caused snow to coat the vertical surfaces as well as the usual horizontal ones. Tree trunks were turned white. Heavy snow coated every single branch and limb; in many cases the thickness of these coatings far exceeded the actual branches supporting them. It was surreal and insanely picturesque. I worked intently and quickly as the snow was literally melting before my eyes. The March sun is far more intense than the December sun.  This snow coating might have lasted all day a couple of months ago. But today it remained for just a couple of hours. Before I could even upload the photos, most of the tree branches were bare of snow and the wonderland simply vanished. But fortunately I was able to capture some of the magic of the scene. The photos convey a sense of majesty, particularly the pine trees with their boughs laden with snow.