Surprise snow

Snow has fallen here off and on all weekend. For most of the time, it didn’t amount to much. On Saturday it snowed all day, and all I ended up with was about half an inch. When it snowed on Monday afternoon, I didn’t think much about it. I was in the cabin, where I could see it snowing but I couldn’t really see the forest floor.

So it was a surprise when I stepped out and found almost 3 inches of snow. Not much, certainly, but more than I expected after the ongoing and unproductive snow showers of the past few days. The local feeder birds had emptied the feeder an hour or so earlier and were huddled around, apparently waiting for me to fill them again.

After the below zero temperatures of Friday night, Monday afternoon’s 20 degrees felt almost balmy. I filled up the bird feeders again and gathered up Dog and Baby Dog to go play in the snow.

I don’t know what it is with my dogs. Perhaps all dogs are like this, but whenever I have snow, my two behave like crazy dogs. They run through the woods, noses under the snow. I keep expecting them to run into something and get hurt but so far that hasn’t happened. They really do have the attitude, though, that if it’s white out, they don’t have to listen. I put up with it as long as I could, then I took one of them inside. It’s easier to deal with wild dogs when there’s only one at a time.

Despite the below average temperatures on the mountain this winter, snow has thus far been in short supply. I’ve missed it, for a variety of reasons. For one thing snow covers up a lot. I can leave things outside—watering cans, coolers, rakes, whatever—and when they are snow-covered it looks like so many interesting bumps. Without snow cover, it just looks like what it really is—stuff I haven’t put away. Snow lets me forget that part until spring. Or at least forget it for a Monday afternoon, which was good enough for the moment.