Snow Falling in Winter

[Author's Note: Okay. I admit it. This blog entry is really just an excuse to post a lot of pictures.]

So we got a biiiig lovely snowstorm the other day. This is not earth-shattering news, of course, but it WAS rather pretty. Unfortunately, it did cause some injuries to the dogs....

AAAAAHHHHH!!! Ali has no legs!

Pepper has no legs either!

Armless legless dogs!

Finn has no legs and an alien stuck to his butt! (I would say "Run away! Run away!" but clearly it is NOT POSSIBLE ANY MORE!)

Apart from the carnage of the armless legless dogs, it was really quite pretty. Relatively warm, with big lacy flakes falling softly through a diffuse pearly light. Every so often a breath of a breeze whispered through, dislodging the heavy mantling of snow from the trees and making tiny local blizzards.

Spruce shedding snow

D's house in the calm...

... and in the breeze, 30 seconds later.

The snow fell all day like this. Just as the storm began to wane, D called to let me know that he had a lot of snow to brush off the Cessna, and invited me to come over, bring a dog, and keep him company (and help excavate the plane, if I so desired.) Here it is, tied down on the lake.

The Cessna before....


... during....

... having the extremely accurate "arm gauge" snow-depth measurement....


... and after excavation. (The wings aren't black and wrinkly. Those are wing covers.)

The fact of it is that on a warm day like that, with the snow falling thick and pretty and the light all diffuse and softly glowing, as if it comes both from nowhere and from everywhere at once, it is really rather a pleasant thing to go brush the snow off the Cessna. It's like painting in reverse: you load your brush with white to reveal the vibrant glossy red of the bird. Apart from which, the dogs are entertaining; they're highly excited by all the snow being brushed off the plane, and God forbid you should set down your gloves or your whisk broom. Those are obviously HIGH VALUE TOYS, since you are playing with them and denying them to the dogs. The minute you turn your back, they're suddenly borne away in the jaws of some Border collie. The only downside, from the dogs' point of view, of spending an afternoon this way is that when it is warm and snowy (and by warm I mean 30 degrees), there's a tendency for ice to accumulate between their toes.


Finn! Look at your feet! You have ice balls!

Dude! I WOULD, except you neutered me, remember?

After all this, of course, the best thing in the world is to go inside, have something hot to drink, and watch an old Cary Grant movie (with popcorn, naturally.)

I don't know; somehow, it seems that there's nothing like a heavy snowfall to make the simple pleasures of life seem like the most decadent of luxuries.

Maybe it's just me.