Winter Wonderland

...well, not exactly. I don't think .4" of the white stuff is winter wonderland material in most of the country.

But we got pretty excited about it around here on Friday. Like my little neighbor, enjoying her day off from school by trying to collect some in a pail. I hope she didn't think there'd be enough for a snowman...

I didn't have to go to work, either, and neither did lots of other San Antonians. Some clueless media folks blamed the snow, but it was really the little layer of ice under it that made driving dangerous, especially for those inexperienced with such hazards. I mean, if it had just been the snow, the roads would have been fine.

We had enough ice in our yard and on the sidewalk that I put my hiking boots on to walk around taking pictures—a little more traction made me feel a lot more secure.

I didn't venture out any further than the yard, but Henry went to work, figuring that he doesn't have far to drive and wouldn't run into too many panicky SA drivers. He did deal with spinning wheels a few times on the way, he told me, but there were very few cars with him on the roads. All the same, our paper reported there were some 500 wrecks and said that eventually the tow trucks had to limit their service calls to rescuing police and fire vehicles!

Here are a few more shots of the precipitation that's so unusual for our area:

doesn't our handsome front porch look a little like a wedding cake with this frosting?

it was odd what the snow stuck to and what it didn't...here's our canoe for sale with a little dusting

someone was up and out before us

What was even more unusual than the fact that we had snow was the fact that some was still around Saturday. Some of the ice, too. Here's a photo I took at 6 p.m. Friday evening, and the porch (on the north side of the house) still had this much in the morning:

We've just had a really, really cold week, with several nights' lows in the low 20's and highs barely—if at all—above freezing. We know that doesn't sound like much to our friends and relatives up north, but a prolonged spell like this doesn't happen here often. It will provide us with conversational fodder, plenty of stories, and plenty of business for plumbers and body shops for some time to come.

[Although I suppose I should add that we're supposed to hit 70° today. Sorry, New Englanders.]