We woke up to a snow globe outside our windows. An almost-windless, beautifully quiet, comfortable wintry day made chores pleasant and I couldn’t resist lugging my 15 pounds of camera and lens with me as I trudged around to the various critters. The chickens were extremely unimpressed, the chicks were even less so, the cats were divided, and the snow was lovely.

They called for a coating to an inch, but it hasn’t stopped snowing. And we are so thankful. This dry ground is so thirsty.

There is nothing quite like the transformation brought by a fresh snow. The delicate, mesmerizing whirlwind of white so exquisitely transforms the most drab, dreariest landscape, drought-parched though it may be, and turns the whole world outside into a thing of wondrous beauty. The trees are finally catching enough snow to be letting it go now and then in puffs of sparkling white. Footprints are getting made and filled in. Critters are hunkered down, and the world outside is peaceful and almost silent. Every dead flower head wears a funny little white hat, fence posts are capped in snow, and every once in awhile a gust sweeps the snow and the snowfall gets heavier, like someone shook the snow globe.

I am so glad to live where there is such a thing as snow.