It started like the snow in a snow-globe, turned topsy turvy by eager hands. Yesterday’s sky dropped a mesmerizing whirl of big, beautiful flakes like downy feathers, falling straight and true like so many stars, then falling thicker, then accumulating.

A snowfall settles like an enchantment. Dazzling the eyes, the snow transforms. It really is splendid, the way the mundanest of things suddenly become things of surpassing beauty, behind a shimmering curtain of snowflakes. Even a clothespin – a clothespin! – has an otherwordly delight about it, under a dainty cap of snow. So soon, the lines will be heavy with freshly washed laundry, not with snow.

With painterly precision, with spell-binding beauty, the homely ponderosa is made resplendent in a wonderland of white, even as the light is dimming from the sky. Things rusted and worn take on a beauty not their own.

The drab brown of worn out fields and tired earth are covered over with the bright promise of relief, of spring, of the so-needed moisture. Parched earth is mercifully given drink and spirits rise at small answers to prayer. A whirling spring snowfall like this one elevates and cleanses and heals and refreshes and restores.

We walked our normal evening loop, the snow plastering us from head to toe. The snowflakes were sweet on my tongue and easy to catch. I wasn’t wearing a cap with a brim and the snow caught in my eyelashes and flew straight into my eyes and melted all over my face. But the air was kind with coming spring, not bitter with the bite of winter. Even the animals felt it. The pups raced around with insane energy, unphased, unchilled. The horses galloped hill after hill, turning to face me, then running, turning then running, the snowy energy coursing in their veins as well.

And so the sun set on an altered world, asleep under a downy blanket, to dream of spring.