Snow, and a Sunflower's Progress

Today we had our first big snow of the year, a little early we understand. This is what our block looked like when it was coming down. There has been a surprising accumulation, and everything is absolutely covered.
The trees and power lines are loaded down with snow, and we called the fire department after seeing sparks in the alley. They arrived quickly, but the sparks had already stopped.

On the right is Mike-n-Ronda's prize sunflower,
the way it looked when we arrived here in August. It was in full bloom then and bent over with the weight of its developing seedhead. The birds didn't give it a chance, though. In September, they pecked it clean, not even waiting for the seeds to mature. The result is below.
Now the whole thing, like the rest of our backyard, is covered with snow. The pansies and some of the wildflowers survived the first frost and the first dusting of snow we got. We're hoping they'll last a little longer.

As some of the wildflowers and weeds have thinned out in the backyard garden, we have found some treats that the previous tenants left us, including some healthy looking garlic plants and a chile plant that yielded four chiles!! Not much in them for the capcasin addict, but they've got a nice flavor and a lovely crunch. We brought them in tonight, anticipating a hard freeze. Luckily, neither one of us is teaching this block, so I expect tomorrow will be a day of writing and course planning in a warm house. We're certainly lucky to have that.