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.