Snow Days

A blue norther, now days called a cold front, hit last Thursday, November 21st, bringing light sleet. Friday was really cold, Saturday and especially Sunday night brought anywhere from eight to twelve inches or more of snow. As you may remember, I grew up on the Gulf Coast of Texas where it consistently snowed about once every ten years, and still follows that schedule as far as I can tell. And then it was wet, not very deep, and only lasted about a day. So for me anything over three inches creates alpine conditions which invariably seduce me into bundling up, kind of like the little brother in A Christmas Memory, and trudging outside for snow pictures. This snow was no different, plus these two dogs just insisted on getting out in it to make yellow snow,  to play, and to hunt for that elusive jackrabbit who teases them unmercifully. So I thought I should share some of those pictures with you.

Thursday and Friday all the little darlings were content to curl up and stay warm in the house. It doesn’t show in the picture, but Peaches commandeered the chair in front of the fireplace.

Saturday brought a light snow and sleet. Porche and Mari decided we needed to walk in it anyway. Sleet had piled up, but not much snow yet. The wind was terribly cold, but it wasn’t a bad walk.

Everything was appropriately dusted with light snow and sleet, as was our carved bear.

 And then Sunday morning we woke up to a world of white.

So I bundled up again, two layers thick, and out we went again. This time, in the immortal words of Elmer Fudd, that waskically wabbit showed up but the dogs didn’t see him. He saw them, however, turned and bolted away in my direction, and headed right at me! No fear. I wanted to catch him mid-air leaping through the snow, but since he came right at me at rabbit-warp speed, I was lucky to get this shot before he passed me.

Porche had little trouble navigating in the snow, but the snow came up to Mari’s tummy, and she had to work harder to get through it. That didn’t seem to affect their delight in racing about, sniffing for rabbit scent or whatever else they might happen upon.

Today is the fourth day of the snow and the sun has finally come out. Out we went again. This time the maneuvering was a bit different, as the top of the snow had started to melt, wasn’t as deep, but had crusted over on top during the night. As the dogs walked their foot would be momentarily held up on the crusted top layer and they they would fall through, and their progress looked a bit choppy. Neither one of them asked to go in, though, so we wandered around long enough to flush out the rabbit again, and once again he evaded them.

Rabbit tracks are easy to distinguish from the dog tracks because the rabbit glides along on top of the snow and as he jumps his feet drag like this in the snow.

The sun is out, the snow is still sparkly and beautiful, but the melting has begun. Messy as it will be, the moisture it creates is most welcome. And the dogs and I enjoyed it, so I’d say the inevitable mess will be worth.

And if it snows again, we’ll be seduced all over again and go out in search of diamond dust and rabbits, and it will be just as much fun as the first time we ever did it.

Snow Day-and Then It's Gone

I suppose every state in the union thinks they can lay claim to that cliche about if you don't like the weather, hang around a little while and it will change. Well, maybe not Hawaii; their weather seems a pretty constant 80 something degrees, but I think West Texas must be where the saying originated. Yesterday morning we awoke to a gray, foggy winter wonderland, not much snow on the ground, but a ton of ice on the trees and everything else. School started an hour late. When the sun came out and hit the icy trees, they shone like white neon against the very blue sky. About the time I decided this was a photo op the wind kicked up and started blowing the ice down. Good thing I went out when I did because by the time I finished the trees were a nondescript gray and the snow on the ground had melted.

About an hour later I looked out and discovered it was snowing, great big flakes. When everything looked like a white Christmas again, it started raining and all the snow melted. Then the wind really kicked in and blew the rest of the day. Our reasonably heavy lawn chairs had been blown around, and thank goodness Bill had taken down all the wind chimes or they would have been tangled and torn up beyond repair.

The one constant has been the cold. For the past week the nights have been well below freezing and the day time temperatures have varied from 32 to about 50. This morning at 7 a.m. the computer said it was eleven degrees.

Tune in again next summer, however, and experience the joy of 100+ degrees, rain, wind, and dirt blowing all at the same time.

Welcome to West Texas.