Dear Weather Gods...

...Thank you for sending the blizzard the week after we got our fireplace hooked up.

So I stayed home from work today with an upset tummy (PSA: Kids, don't eat undercooked chicken. Bad, bad idea...)

Turned out to be a good thing, really. Because it SNOWED!!!

Fortunately, the intestinal weirdness was not sufficiently severe to keep me from going out and documenting. Aside from the stimulation of seeing everything covered in white, I also learned some stuff. For example, snow is wet. When it's falling steadily, it will build up in your hair, melt, and make your head cold. Also, snow is sticky (who knew?). It sticks to the bottom of your shoes like clay, then suddenly drops off, leaving one foot 2 inches shorter than the other. Startling.

I persevered, nevertheless.

The Demesne

Snow-covered back yard & greenhouse

As you can see, it was never cold enough for the snow to stick to pavement--it just piled up in the grass.

Kitchen patio looks a lot better with the snow covering all the weeds

Snow highlights the contours on half-dug pond

10th Street in the snow

Shade patio in the snow.

Unfortunately, the snow coincided with garbage day, so a lot of my pictures feature bright blue trash cans that stand out beautifully against all that white.

Maybe I can fix that... Lemme just--wait a sec--there! Much better!


Chilly Flowers
We had a handful of early bloomers this year, and now they're being punished for their initiative, poor things.

Remember that nice iris from 2 days ago?

Frosted iris

Snowflake with snowflakes

Chinese sacred lilies weighted down with snow

And then I went back inside, curled up in my wool blanket on our squashy sofa in front of a cheerfully crackling hissing fire, lit a candle, and felt smugly snug. It was fun, but I'm glad we only do this once every 10 years.

Still working on the tile. Ordered it last week--just need to pick it up and schedule appointment with tile dude.