This morning the sun was shining brightly, and diamonds glittered off the pristine white snow. I stood there for a moment, shivered, as I admired the designs in the snow. It looked as though someone had dropped pebbles in water and the white ripples froze in place. They  seemed to appear randomly throughout the yard.  I knew the patterns were formed by very cold ground winds as they jumped from one high patch to the next.

Outside temperature was 0 degrees…

Inside the house I heard the winds howling as they moved under the eves and around the chimney, and then tried to push in through the gaps in the old windows.  I heard the sound of the deck popping from the cold. The boards were freezing.

I grabbed an old purple sweatshirt, pulled it on over my head and shuffled to the kitchen.   Before I do anything I need my morning coffee, at least a sip.  

 A short time later I was standing out at the end of the driveway in three feet of snow. Not too bad, considering yesterdays snow fall. This was soft; at least the snow blower might be able to plow through this.  It will be slow going. All that snow I couldn’t remove yesterday was frozen solid and lined the driveway in slippery uneven miniature icebergs.  

I lowered my scarf from my face and allowed the blast of cold to hit me straight on. It felt like my eyes froze. Ouch!

I made sure no cars were coming and stepped out of the drive looking down the road to the north. The street was a slick, sheet of ice. Then to the south where it was patchy, strips of ice and blacktop.

The winds raced across the road at ground level.  It looked as though someone had put dry ice in the ditch for miles in both directions. A snowy mist poured over the ditch onto the road, and raced along the ground to the other side.  

It did look a bit eerie.

I started laughing, my imagination was running wild, “Keep to the road, don’t walk in the moors, the werewolves will get you!”   Oh! That would look great! Trying to out run anything in this cold would have to happen in slow motion- by both parties.

The cold had to be freezing my brain!  There was no other explanation…

The tips of my fingers were hurting; I curled my hands up in my gloves.

Uriah paced in the snow, lifting one paw then the other. His head was covered in snow. He had been rolling in a snow drift.

“Come on, Uriah! Let’s go back in where it’s warmer.”