Winter #1

Whoever coined the phrase, “Here today, gone tomorrow” must have been talking about winter on Planet Georgia. Or what passes for winter here.

Yesterday afternoon, I was enjoying a little quiet time—splitting enough wood to fill the rack. The sky looked dark, threatening rain, but I was ready to knock off from swinging the maul and get some writing done. As I pulled up the driveway, I saw a bunch of white stuff coming down. “What is that?” I thought, wondering if a nearby tree was dropping some debris—then, the penny dropped.

Flaky weather we're having…

Snow? It was like 40°F outside. But I got out of the truck, and it was definitely snow. I’ve never accused weather (and rarely anything else) on Planet Georgia of making sense.

The girlies were out shopping, so I let them know what was happening at the manor. I assumed it was more a novelty than anything. Daughter Dearest asked me, “Is it sticking?”

“Not on the yard or the driveway,” I assured her. “But it’s still coming down.”

“Well, let us know if it starts to stick.”

Light up the night!

After a half an hour of snow, it actually began to stick. I called to let them know, and they started wrapping up their shopping. The snow continued through the afternoon, and into the night, although it didn’t accumulate all that much.

There was still snow on the ground come morning, but it began retreating under the full frontal assault of Sunday sunlight. The wife wanted Mason to have a chance to go play, so she got him some boots and a jacket, and I put on my coat, and let him run around outside. He gravitated to the patio, where he poured sand over one of his trucks. “It’s covered in snow! Kind of,” he said. (It’s hilarious, what three year old kids will come up with sometimes.)

Sand looks like snow if you over-expose…

About half an hour after we got outside, the snow on the yard was pretty much gone. There was still an icy patch on the driveway, and Mason kept wanting to walk across it on his orbits around the house. I finally told him he was risking falling and hurting himself, and to go around it.

So what does he do? Runs full-bore and falls in the wet muddy grass.

We now return you to Long November. I leave you with a final picture, a snowscape that didn’t really exist but isn’t a Photoshop. Feel free to speculate in the comments, and I’ll give a gold star to the first correct guess.