Il neige! Nevica! Het sneeuwt! *

So the other day the weather people were saying that we were going to get some Real Winter Precipitation coming through the area. If you live in cooler climes, this is not a big deal, but for the South it's like WOW!! I still didn't totally believe that it was going to happen because, well, like I said, we live in the South. Usually if their predictions actually occur it will be an ice storm or something like that! Yecch!

I went to work yesterday and it started snowing lightly that morning. After lunchtime it was coming down big-time, and when my coworker and I left around 1:30PM it was like winter storm, man! A drive that usually takes me 20 minutes took me at least an hour this day. Poor Kid was dying to go out and play, but it snowed like crazy all afternoon.

However, as I suspected, the snowflakes weren't falling the next day, so we bundled up and took a trek around our yard. Because we don't get snow around here often, when it does come there is a magical quality that comes with it. A lot of it has to do with the silence. Because roads aren't cleared and tires aren't winterproofed, traffic is rare. Also, the acoustical quality of snow muffles or absorbs unnecessary sound. Things are peaceful, restful, and lend themselves to quiet contemplation. It reminds me that God is always giving us new beginnings, as well as desiring for us to look at the same old things in a different way.

We have a little over an acre and traipsed all around it. The dogs, giddy with excitement from the snow (as well as our being outside) played around.

Mojo is our yellow Lab, whom we have had for about 7 years now, and Maggie, the black Lab, is around 9 months old. (Our German Shepherd, Suzy, was incarcerated - she kept breaking out of the fence, so she was detained in the smaller dog pen that day!)

Nutty dogs playing around in the snow!

My little cutie loved tramping around, and we made snow piles and kicked around in what I guess to be 6" of white stuff (again, this is really a lot for where we live). We could hear plops and see snow fly as lumps of snow fell from tree branches.

It had gotten up into the high 40's by this afternoon, and by the next day the only snow in our yard was that which was in the shade of the trees. But, as always, it was fun while it lasted!

* ("It's snowing!" in French, Italian, and Dutch)