First Snow

The first snow has arrived, with a few hours of light snowfall. But much to our surprise, it has hung around for a few days.

The parsonage looks great with a fresh coat of snow.

The roads are mostly clear now -- apparently Minnesota didn't even find the flurries worthy of bringing out the plows. There are still a few pockets hanging around, though, and we have barely pushed past freezing the past two days.

Cold, but very clear. Our Saturday routine changed when the farmers' market closed for the season at the end of October, and so we took advantage of the sunny day and the fresh snowfall to explore our local state park with its new decorations.

We had ice forming on some of the smaller bodies of water on Friday, but after two days below the freeze point, even some of the lakes have ice starting to creep across. It's not enough to hold weight yet, but it's still surprising to see so much so early. (By comparison, if this much ice formed on any lake in Georgia, it would be after an especially miserable January.)

 The park winds back and forth through woods, prairie grass, and next to now-vacant corn fields.

 

After an hour or so wandering through the park, we made it back to the car -- just as we had hit the point where we were uncomfortably cold. And good news: we survived without having to break out our heaviest gear yet. We'll see how we do when we get into the negative digits, but it's a successful first outing.

Sunday, with an afternoon off, we decided to take a walk through our favorite spot in the city, along a small and shallow river. We didn't dress quite as well this time and had to turn around, but not before capturing a picture of the frozen river:

It's not much to the Minnesotans, but I'm pretty sure this weather would send Atlanta into a frenzy.

Winter is Coming

Next morning I awoke, looked out the window and nearly died of fright. My screams brought Atticus from his bathroom half-shaven.
"The world's endin', Atticus! Please do something--!" I dragged him to the windo and pointed.
"No it's not," he said. "It's snowing." -- To Kill a Mockingbird

Winter is just around the corner. We were inundated with rain this past week, and then the temperature dropped into the thirties.

I went for a walk this afternoon and noticed that the puddles had sheets of ice over them -- and some were completely turned to ice.

Some of the streams branching off of our local river had layers of ice over them, and I could hear the thin, frosty sheets cracking as the geese landed on the iced-over sections.

The occasional snow flake landed on my jacket, but by the time I turned around and headed home, we were experiencing full-on flurries.

I went out to run some errands, only to find that the snow was now sticking to the roads.

Which, compared to three weeks ago, makes this our first real snow, I guess.

And Suzanne successfully drove home in it! Huzzah!

Now, this is supposed to be a light winter because of El Niño, which means milder temperatures and less snowfall. But...less snowfall in these parts still means 30-40 inches.

- - -

In unrelated news, I purchased our first turkey and all of the stuff to make our first Thanksgiving dinner! Now to figure out how to cook the darn thing. Our roasting pan doesn't fit in our teeny-tiny oven.