Snow Day!

We had some decent snowfall last night -- first real snow since we moved across the river, really first real snow I can recall since January of 2004, when we returned from spending New Year's in Alaska to find the weather in our fair city colder than it had been in Nome. Our noble housesitter was stuck with us for three more days of snow and ice before things thawed enough to navigate the roads again. We were lucky the power didn't go out, since our house was 100% electric, and also lucky to have a mini-mart one scant block away. It was three solid days of Yahtzee, dvd movies, and snacks galore. It was also the week that J. felt the baby move for the first time. I had been feeling her for some time but she finally got big enough for J. to feel. It was a glorious week.

At any rate, it snowed last night for about three hours, snow that stuck and stayed with us until midday today. No school for the kiddies and the neighborhood was lousy with red-nosed hooligans pelting one another with snowballs.

Then it melted, but we have an arctic front moving in and it's supposed to be 18 or 19 degrees F. tonight, which is butt-cold for us. I made sure to clean the chicken hut and give them ample fresh shavings, adjust their crummy 60 watt bulb for optimal warmage, and snug the extremely attractive blue tarp over the whole mess with a festoon of bungee cords and rope. And I just finished taking out the garbage and recycling for what we affectionately call Garbage Man Day. All is cozy and the hatches are battened.

The point of all this reminiscence and smug preparedness, other than to describe the unfamiliar warm feeling of virtue to you, my dear reader(s), is to bring you pictures of an adorable child cavorting in the snow! Enjoy!

She is a little over 2 1/2 now and this was her first real snow. Her first instinct was to eat it, but once she got over the novelty of Edible White Stuff All Over Everything, we managed to get her onto a sled.