Winter Returns

This was a week of contrasts. Warm rains came and washed all the snow away. Though it was late when I got home on Wednesday, I went out with the dogs to have a last look at the ground; snow was forecast for the next day, and I thought this might be the last time I would see dry land until spring--or at least the January thaw.

Above, you can just see a black dog in the middle of the trail, with a full carpet of leaves and needles on the forest floor. Below, Valla stands in the the grove, which looks warm and inviting, but that all changed in a matter of hours.

This is what it looked like in the morning--all the branches were weighed down with wet, heavy snow, and the leaves in the crick were glazed with ice. Already the sky is that intense blue it assumes in winter. The black water flowed through plump white banks of snow. This weekend it will drop to -14, but then rise to 5--the November rollercoaster.