It snowed!

Stop the presses! Alert the media! Yesterday we had snow!

Granted, not much, maybe four inches. But hey, with the exceptionally dry and freaky-warm winter we've had so far, we'll take what we can get.

The conditions were exceptionally calm and picturesque.

The one unfortunate thing about this snow was its timing. Up until this point, the most we've had was a light dusting of snow that soon melted away.

This melted-off dusting meant the ground and roads were wet. Temperatures were expected to plunge yesterday evening (as indeed they did), which meant the roads would be sheets of ice (as indeed they were). Anticipating this, we called our pastor and told him we weren't going to risk driving to the evening Ash Wednesday service, much as we wanted to attend. We're still gun-shy about driving in questionable conditions after our Christmas Day car accident over a year ago.

So we stayed home and enjoyed the snow. So did Mr. Darcy.

We went walking in our pasture yesterday evening, and Darcy romped in the white stuff like he'd never seen it before.

The evening sky looked lovely as the clouds cleared away.

By this morning, the temperature had dropped to 17F and the walkways and roads were dangerously icy. I had to watch my footing when I went out to milk the cow.

As an interesting side note, yesterday on our porch, the bird feeder (which is tied to the railing) had been knocked off overnight. Since our neighbor's cats are always hanging around, I blamed them. (Note the kitty paw prints below.)

But the snow revealed the real culprit: A raccoon.

Today is clear as a bell and very beautiful outside.

It's also warming up, and as I write this (noon-ish), snow on south-facing slopes is already melting. Sigh. It was nice while it lasted.