This time we had a little warning. About a day and a half/two days before the forces of winter were unleashed upon us, the weather prognosticators began clanging the bells of doom so that we could load up on cheetos, TP, and sweetened condensed milk (snow cream don't cha know). Every AA battery in the state has been snapped up and there is not a bottle of water to be found. Prep here involved hours of packing in stove wood and filling barrels of water at the stable where my horse lives - they are on a well and, if the power goes out, melting snow for 18 horses then hand carrying it from the wood stove to the barn is not a pleasant proposition. Anyway, all that could be done was done. At 2:30 PM my super secret supposed expert weather geek update stated no precip would begin until just after sunset, it was 40 degrees, and I thought I was good to make a three o'clock last run to the barn to help get all the equines snuggled in for their long winter's nap. Thirty min later, the snow started (newsflash, the sun has not set at 3PM) - once the snow started the temp fell eight degrees in less than thirty min.

After half an hour of white pestilence falling from the sky, my front yard looked like this:


My back deck after three hours of weather:


This morning we awoke to this:


If you look to the trees in both the last shot you will see in the first that the trees are beautifully caked in snow - nothing prettier - but in the second the trees are clear of snow. That is because when we got up it had been sleet and freezing rain for a few hours. An interesting lesson in meteorology - snowing at 40 degrees - sleet and freezing rain at 27 degrees, shows how important the temps above ground level are in determining what we specks of human life are left to deal with - fluffy snow or snow with a crust of ice on top. When we went to bed the snow on the rail was a smooth wall, this morning we have parapets of snow.


The corgis love the snow. This is Gus snow swimming.


A few minutes later there are ant paths and puppy prints. Those holes scattered outside the paths are not foot prints - they are the holes left from snow swimming.


What are they doing in the snow? Why playing frisbee of course. There is nothing in this world (other than food) that Fiona loves more than playing frisbee. "Frisbee boy, throw the frisbee, wanna play frisbee? Here it is, I'll even drop it on you so you don't have to get it. See? Frisbee! Throw it, throw it, throw it..."


Oh yeah, watching corgis try to navicate in twelve inches of snow is pretty darned entertaining.