Another day, another dusting

Another day, another dusting of snow. How many dustings does it take to make an inch? I don’t know, though I do know it’s more dustings than I’ve had so far. I’ve had a dusting of snow every day for the past five days now, and I doubt there’s more than half an inch of snow on the ground.

I do rather like these little snows. Every morning the snow is fresh again, a thin carpet of white covering the forest. Oh, these little snows can’t compare to an actual snow, the kind of snow where I could go snowshoeing or cross-country skiing, but they are far more preferable to no snow at all.

By evening the dogs and I have tracked up the driveway and the lane. Then each morning I see who and what has been padding around the cabin while we are sleeping. The deer return to the juniper bush for a few bites, and their chomping is starting to result in a visibly chomped bush. I see little cat feet and raccoon tracks. I see lots of small bird tracks, though I can’t really tell a chickadee track from a junco track. To me they are all just little bird tracks.

In the early afternoon, before the snow is too much tracked up, I can see what the chickens have been up to and where. Doodle, my rooster, follows One-Eye, my old chicken, wherever she goes. She doesn’t much like snow and can usually be found under the cabin where the snow doesn’t lurk. Sometimes Doodle, who has huge feet by the way, travels over to the new chickens’ pen and parades around it, no doubt hoping to find a way in.

Even these little snows help to make the season feel like winter. The temperatures at the moment are actually below normal, though not aggressively or uncomfortably so. The days don’t break freezing, though the afternoons near that mark, and the nights settle down into the teens. The wind has finally eased up, and being outside is enjoyable again.

After last year’s non-winter, a season that approaches normal is welcome, at least by me.