

These photos taken at Mount Vernon on March 25, 2011.
Mom and I flew home from D.C. yesterday afternoon and returned to a snow covered Minneapolis. The photo at left was taken at an art show at my niece Abby's pre-school. It actually snowed very lightly at Pete's home in Virginia yesterday morning but it melted very quickly.

Yes, we're just a hair past 12 hours total daylight and the recent warmer, sunnier days have put a dent in the snow-pack. According to Twin Cities weather guru Paul Douglas, "we've had at least a trace of snow on the ground since Nov. 23 and at least 1 inch of snow on the ground since Dec. 1, nearly 4 months ago!" I think the driveway snowmound (pictured above) looks slightly diminished.
As of today we've officially had 80.2 inches of snow this season. That makes this the seventh snowiest winter on record for Minneapolis (and it ain't officially over yet!). High is supposed to push 50 degrees today! Glad to see signs of melt. Also, we're at 11 hours and 59 minutes of daylight!
Haven't seen the hose since November. In fact, I don't think the south side of the yard had been walked on since then.

I heard another cardinal, second of the year, when I took Sophie out for a walk this morning. Looked up and saw a red splotch way up high in the tree across the street singing its beautiful song.
We were supposed to get a ton more snow this week but currently the weather gurus are backing off that prediction. The storm is moving south but we'll still get some snow. How much remains to be seen.