WINTER SNOW HOUSTON 2017

OK, a warning, this is a picture heavy post but it's because we don't see this around here very often.  In fact, we could count on one hand the number of times we've had a snow like this in the past 20 years.  

So, as small as it was compared to what other parts of the country get, it was pretty exciting around these parts.  Be sure to at least see the last photo, our absolute favorite and a COMPLETE lucky shot...

(as always click on any picture to enlarge)

Pink is sleet/freezing rain and of course snow flurries mixed in. Light blue is snow.  At midnight here in town, we had just moved from rain to freezing rain (the dark blue is only rain). The farm however was about to experience snow.

This was at midnight, snow just mixed in lightly with the sleet and freezing rain.

So pretty.

By about 1:30am we were in full on snowfall at both places.  I got a text alert saying that heavy snow was falling and so we got up and I went outside on the balcony to take some pictures.  

Same picture angle as earlier, snow much heavier.

This is a parking lot we can see from our window and the light from a sign was shining up.  I tried to capture the heavy snow as it passed through the light beam (probably should have used video, ha).

Remember the first city picture I posted above?  Same angle, same direction, just a couple hours later.  For us, a blizzard!  

We went back to bed but it continued.  

4:15am.  Still coming down pretty heavy in Houston but getting lighter at the farm.  

7:30am it was wakeup and time for getting ready for work.  Still snowing in Houston, but it had stopped at the farm.  Of course now it was daylight and time to go out and see what it looked like.

Remember the view with the ray of light shining up through the snowfall?  It was from this parking lot. Normally by this time of morning, employees streaming into downtown have mostly filled up the parking lots.  Not this morning.  In town, it just barely got to freezing and because the day before had been above freezing, nothing stuck to the ground.  It just covered whatever horizontal surface it landed on.  

Like the pool furniture at the apartment.  

And the palm trees.  We always love seeing palm trees with snow.  Such a contrast in "seasons". It's like Winter crashed into Summer.

This was outside my office.  By 8:30am, it had begun melting and by noon, it was all gone.  

We know what you are wondering, what about the farm?  Well thankfully 2nd Family took some pictures for us.  We're always grateful for them to keep us up to date with photos of major events out there so we'll have them as part of our history. 

The driveway in.  

Mesquite trees aren't normally covered in snow, ha. 

One of the trails that I mow every week.  Normally green and lush, now definitely looking like Winter.

Pretty safe bet that the plants know that Winter has arrived by now.  We're sure the grass will be dormant in a week or so and the last of the leaves on the trees will drop off.  

So as we scanned the trail cam photos/videos, we were hoping we might capture something like snow coming down or at least the white yard.  Never could we have imagined we'd capture this:

Talk about absolutely PERFECT timing!!!

These two deer (could have been more we suppose) were galloping through the snowy front yard.  The video portion only captured the tail end of one, so we're pretty excited to have somehow captured this wonderful moment in time.  

After the nightmare of Hurricane Harvey, Houston needed this kind of rare event.  There were no icy roads or bridges (at least around here) and no frozen pipes or things like that.  First we win the World Series and now we have a snow for the record books!  We'd say that's a pretty good recovery so far...

The Great Snow of 2017