Early light

Did I say the other day that the worst of winter wasn’t over at the end of December? It wasn’t.

When I went to create a folder for photos of last night’s snowstorm, I realized I already had a folder called “February 2014 snow.” Surprise, surprise.

This batch of photos may look like they were taken earlier in the month, or last month, or the month before that, but they weren’t.

Snowy Malvina

During the big snow earlier this month, I was looking after a dog and a miniature horse — plus Trav, of course. This time I’m looking after a dog (different dog), two cats, and five hens — and, of course, Trav. The menagerie is bigger but the hassle is less because it’s within walking distance. I haven’t dug Malvina Forester out yet. The big deal isn’t the digging; it’s scraping ice off the windows. Here’s hoping the sun does most of the work.

When the snow’s more than a few inches deep, the hens stay in their little yard. They’ve got cracked corn and a heated water dispenser in there.

I scattered some sunflower seeds around for the wild birds, hoping this doesn’t make them sitting ducks (so to speak) for the cats.

The driveway

After the menagerie was taken care of, Trav and I set out for our morning walk.

The snow’s pretty heavy, but the wind was strong and there’s been a fair amount of drifting. I’d guess there’s seven or eight inches out there. Thursday’s torrential all-day rain, coupled with temps in the mid to high 30s, took care of most of the ice on the driveway and the road. This is good. I wore my Yaktrax anyway.

Travvy was in a zoomie mood. Into the woods, out of the woods . . .

Until he wore himself out and needed a break.

Many, many trees were bent low with the weight of the snow. In some places they blocked our usual path. One hand’s shaking wasn’t enough to free them of their burden — my other hand was holding Trav’s Flexi lead. We picked our way around them. I hope they don’t break.

Snow and shadow make wondrous patterns. This one is from the tennis courts near the school.

Something with one wide tread and runners had already been up the bike path. Maybe it was two things? Damned if I know. There are some strange critters abroad in the woods.

We passed two neighbors scraping ice off their cars.

Snow makes for more work, but it’s still beautiful.