Looking west again.
Well, we got about a half-inch overnight. The temperature dipped into the 20s (F), and there came a morning breeze, and ice had roughened the deck and ground and walkways when first I checked. The forecast promises a deepening cold and rising winds.
I got thinking about wind when a good friend mentioned today that wind is one kind of weather she’s not particularly fond of. Contrariwise, I love it. The wind is scary and invigorating. Nature’s power. Also, wind means atmosphere, and atmosphere means life. Lacking life, the wind could blow and blow and nothing would move but invisible atoms—no swaying grass or bowing trees or swirls of leaves or drifts and dunes. Still, now that the temperature’s dipped to 9 degrees (F) and the wind is gusting from the north, I’d be lying if I pretended the adjective “bone-chilling” has not occurred to me. It’s the kind of cold that makes you realize how quickly you can die from it.
Across the road today, a half-dozen crows again hung out on the patch of lawn they’d visited yesterday, only today it’s white with crusty snow. Just after sunset, driving up Route 1, I saw a pair of mourning doves flying swiftly to the west, as chasing the sun.
Tonight is clear, and the moon is nearly full. [An aside: to check the phase of the moon for any date, click here.] The snow, the moonlight, the cold, the wind—all suggest to me just now the barrenness of winter. Add to that the rumblings we’re getting of a gigantic snowstorm due on New Year’s Day, and it makes me want to get a little skating in.
Single digits.
Note: my outside thermometer reads about five degrees low.
