No!

I know we should prepare ourselves for late season snowstorms.  But recognizing that fact of life in Appalachia doesn't make it any easier to bear.  I usually don't shoot flowers "square-on."  Nor do I position my subjects directly in the center.  Nor do I normally leave them "dark." But today's photos are more of a recording than a photograph.  And it IS dark...with a thick covering of dense clouds, rain spits, and cold.  So, I left these beauties alone.  That's because I want to remember the incomparable blooms, and I know that by tomorrow morning, I will be looking at droopy, bedraggled remnants of the best bloom of clematis I've ever exeperienced.  They are huge this year.  But....bye,bye...   

We're getting one of those late snowstorms here in the Allegheny Mountains.  (And by the way, NOAA Weather called them the "a-LEG-a-nees" this morning.  Took me a moment or two to figure that one out!  You'd think by now NOAA would have gotten the electronic voice I call Boris, to pronounce this ancient name correctly!  Then again, they probably have enough to do, just tracking this irratic weather!) An inch (or so) of accumulation of "heavy, wet snow" is forecast.  Only down to 31 degrees though. So, with any luck it won't bite the fruit trees.  And just how "heavy" can an inch of snow be?

  OTOH, snow and clematis are not usually good companions.  If there is anything remaining after the predicted wind of 35+ mph (which will batter the 6-inch wide blossoms) I will post a comparison shot.  I am lucky to have had the joy of these generous blooms this spring, but I wish Mother Nature would settle down.  Then again, maybe the earliness of spring this year was what brought me this show to begin with!  Wish for alternatives very carefully.  Right?!