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.