Winter ... um ... wonderland

It's cold. My computer weather says it's now "sunny and 8 F" (that's F for Fahrenheit, not what it might stand for!) and I can guarantee that's about right. I got back from walking the dog about an hour ago when it was a balmy 12. But there's a wind down near the river that my computer doesn't account for. I would've walked longer but my face was too cold. And the dog, who's part Husky, doesn't mind at all. That's snow on her nose in this picture, from sticking her head into snow listening for mousies under the snow-covered grass. Or maybe from just biting the snow as she is wont to do. She loves it.

I think I'm turning into a total wuss. I don't like the cold. I was born in this climate, for heaven's sake, and I don't like it. I'm not sure I ever did. Oh sure, when I was a kid and didn't know there were places that didn't get below freezing, much less below zero. I remember playing outside in the winter but I do NOT remember asking to go outside. It's what you did, especially when directed by your mother who was probably about nuts with too many kids in not enough rooms. But I could live without winter now, at this age.

It's pretty, I'll give you that. I made it snow, that trick that almost everyone has had done to them where the person just ahead of or behind you on a trail pulls on a snow-laden branch so it dumps half a tree's worth of snow, usually down your neck because your head is bent to watch the trail when you're on either skis or snowshoes. With the sun shining through it, it's pretty. But it's still cold. And it was cold enough last night and this morning to have the 3-5 inches we got come down in dry power. It looks like someone has covered the landscape with Ivory Snow. (I like to think about what would happen if that were true ... and then it rained. Would there be bubblanches, like avalanches?) So it was sparkly and skiers love this stuff, but I haven't been on my cross-country skis for several years now and I have no apologies. While I can walk out my back door and in about 5 minutes be walking along the beautiful Saranac River, the terrain is not conducive to x-c skiing, IMHO. Again, this is the wuss speaking, groomed trails that someone else has broken into the snow are the place for skis. Groomed trails tend not to have big bare patches or branches and old logs disguised as piles of snow. I'm not talking Florida here; I'd take, oh, maybe Tennessee or thereabouts. (Bruce shudders about that latitude because of their ice storms. I wouldn't mind those; they melt.)

I should have worn my snowshoes today. No snowmobiles had run the trail behind the house and I was breaking trail all the way to the river. And with 3-5"of new snow it all looks smooth, tricking the gullible (that would be me) into thinking that I could just walk like, well, walking. It was more workout than my legs expected!

I'll throw in one more picture and then I'll go start deciding what to make for dinner. In my life the excitement never ends.