We have had, as you may have heard, some serious snow. It’s been a while since we had snow this serious — the kind of snow where the driveway has to be plowed before you can reach the main road, and where your car has to be shoveled out before you can get to the driveway.

Walking ain’t easy either. This morning Tam and I set out down a path we often take. No one had ventured down it yet — this is one fun thing about snow: you know when only the birds and the rabbits have beat you to it — so off we went.

Hard work but OK, till we got to a drifty stretch where the snow was over my knees — at least 20 inches, I figured later. Tam, being only a little taller, was having a hard time too. So we took the easy way out: we were only a few yards from the back parking lot of the West Tisbury School, which had already been plowed.

At that point, the best way home was to walk along Old County till we got to Halcyon Way, our road, which had been plowed and was easy walking. In another day or so, plowed roads will be icy so I’ll put my Yaktrax on, but this morning I didn’t need them.

Today the sun was out, the sky was blue, and the snow sparkled on the branches. Yesterday the walking was easier but snow was falling, the wind was blowing, and the world was so monochrome that my eye was drawn to every bit of color.

This is the entrance to the ABC Disposal’s dumpster yard up the road from me. See what I mean by monochrome?

And here’s a new stone wall that I pass almost every day:

Tam Lin running on the basketball court:

The basketball court offered this bright flash of red:

Bert Fischer’s American flag caught my eye:

Given the way the wind was blowing — and as you can see the wind was blowing — I thought I might get a better shot from the other side of the shed. Tam and I trudged through the snow, only to discover that in order to get a good view of the flag we would have to venture onto Bert and Linda’s lawn, which is very close to their front windows. In other circumstances I would have done it, but boot- and pawprints in the snow would have been a dead giveaway. Not that Bert and Linda would mind, but it still seemed a little bit sneaky to be tramping across someone’s lawn to take a picture of their flag.

Did I say that the lawn, and the shed with the flag flying from it, are very close to the house? After we got home and I’d taken off my layers of clothes and toweled Tam off so he wouldn’t shake snow all over the apartment, I logged on to Facebook and what should I see on my timeline but this:

Bert, who is an excellent photographer, had been watching out the window as Tam and I snuck up on his shed and of course he had taken a picture. “Busted!” I wrote, and explained what we were doing there. Now I wish we’d gone a little farther and gotten another shot of the waving flag.