First Snow

In a whiplash maneuver, November has turned from summer-like temperatures to suddenly much, much colder. Snow was expected in the afternoon, but in the morning, we ran errands in town. My husband wanted to go to Walmart, which I thought might be a big mistake, and I had two banks I needed to visit.

I am finally closing my Penn State Federal Credit Union account, after having it for many years; without any paychecks going into it for going on two years now, it's been sitting there quietly, doing not much at all. Now it's done. It feels very strange, shedding all these vestigial organs from a previous life.

The town errands went fine, we wrapped up our business, and we split a coast-to-coast cheesesteak, fries, and a drink at C.C. Pepper's. A few fat flurries had started by the time we finished up and got back in the car. He dropped me off close to home and I walked my way back through the Barrens, where I visited the ponds.

The ponds in the Barrens are freezing, and I stopped by two of my favorite ponds to watch the craggy, spiky, angular shapes of the ice forming, the orange leaf shapes captured and held still beneath the glassy surface, the dark shadows of reflected trees, one intrepid plant still green, and even a few flurries on the ice.

By the time I was done with my walk, around 1 p.m., it was snowing in earnest, and I ran into two of my favorite people and their black lab as I left the Barrens. "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!" I sang to them, as I twirled around in the snow and their lab jumped up to greet me.

As I headed down the hill, there came my husband on his bike, looking for me. In short order, we were inside our snug house, where we spent the storm, which dropped around 3 to 5 inches of soggy, wet snow on us before it ended overnight.

This is a view looking out our deck door windows into our snowy woods.

Welcome to winter!

My soundtrack song is this one: Tori Amos, with Winter.