March in Missouri

Yep, it's March in central Missouri, when everything is possible. In the last few weeks we've had:

Our first toad show up:

Along with our first snake:

The first good thunderstorm, with an extra-good view from the newly cleared orchard area:

And (hopefully) the last snow, just this weekend:

There are lettuce seedlings under some of those hoops, and other have beets and radishes. We've had to go out multiple times and brush the heavy snow off the plastic before it collapses entirely, but the hoops have done their job in offering some protection and an earlier start.

This weekend also marked the opening of the Columbia Farmers Market, at the peak of the nasty weather. Both the Tribune and the Missourian were good enough to show up, and both had nice articles (see links). Check out the stories just for the photos alone. Sure would be nice to have a better setup for the market; the demand and supply are certainly there.

The truly nasty thing about this snow, for us, is that it will take so long to vanish. An equivalent rainfall on saturated ground would run off fairly quickly; this has all stayed put, and will take many days to dry out. A snowfall means a much longer period of wet ground in which we can't do as much. That's just how it is; March is the statistically most likely month for heavy snowfall in Missouri, so we can be grateful a few inches is all we recieved. Not far south of here the totals are closer to one foot.