Day 70: It’s here…

During the night there was wind and rain.  A lot of rain.  Sometime early this morning it sounded like pellets of ice hitting the windows.  And when we woke up, it was here:

(Snow on the pumpkin.)

The first real snowfall of the season!  (I don’t think the few flurries we’ve had should count since they were mixed with rain and never amounted to much more than “few.”)  I know some of you have already had your first (and second, possibly third) snow experiences this season and are over the excitement of it.  Having had a look at our forecast for the next ten days, my excitement may dwindle too.  But for now I’m going to revel in the joy of the first snowfall.

In between the noise of the wind hitting the camera you can hear the birds singing.  It seems an incongrous sound to go with the cold, white snow.

(Walking through the meadow towards the woods.)

As you can see, the snow hasn’t amounted to much yet.  There is a chance of snow in the forecast for the next ten days which generally means Lake Erie is cranking it out.  Or there is a chance it will.

(Overflowing creek.)

We must have had a lot of rain yesterday and overnight.  The pond is overflowing.  The creek is taking up a goodly portion of the woods now, having gone way over its banks.  I didn’t even attempt to walk down into the woods today.  I was already painfully cold in spite of all the layering, hat, gloves, etc.  I didn’t want to get my feet wet.  I suspect the whole of the woods is more than boggy.

(Pretty white dusting.)

I only lasted about 20 minutes out there.  As mentioned earlier, it was painfully cold.  It’s the wind nipping at my face and fingertips that gets me.  I will go out again later to get in the rest of my 30 minutes.

(Winter cattails.)

I wasn’t able to feed the birds.  The barn doors are frozen shut.  The bird seed is stored, naturally, in the barn.  I wanted to bring it into the garage but M was against that idea.  He thinks it will entice the mice to come live in the garage.  It’s not a bad reason.  Except… the bird seed is kept in a hard plastic, airtight container.  And the mice move into the garage every winter anyhow.  Sometimes they move into the house as well.  That’s why we have cats.

(Today’s view of the pond.)

We feed the cats and allow them to laze around for three of the four seasons of the year.  In exchange, they earn their keep during the winter months by hunting down and ridding us of the mice.

Anyhow.  I’ll be going back out to feed the birds as soon as M comes home from work and opens the barn doors for me.  Hopefully the wind will have died down by then.