The snow started around 9 with small flakes. They are still falling but more quickly. I procrastinated the last couple of days so I had to go out this morning. I dreaded it, but the dogs needed food as did Jack. They better be thankful. What surprised me was how few a number of cars I saw. At the store where I usually shop, the parking lot was pretty much empty. Four registers were open but idle. I sailed through. I did reward myself with a scone and a Snickers. The dogs got their biscuits. They always do from this store. They circle me like vultures while I’m carrying the bags. They look like baby birds in the nest waiting to be fed. Their mouths are open anticipating their treats, their biscuits. It is not a pretty sight. The scone is gone.

I can’t remember when I was last delighted by so much anticipated snow. When I was a kid, to me, snow was about the best weather of all weathers. I loved that from the front picture window in the living room I could see my part of the street and parts of two other streets. The street light was on the corners of two streets. It lit the road and the sidewalk. The light was best in rain or snow. I remember watching heavy rain slanted sideways by the wind passing through the light. The snow sometimes glinted under the light. The heavy snow made everything look shadowed. That snow usually came sideways. The bigger flakes, not the biggest flakes, fell the longest and the most. The street light cover would get lost in the snow, even its heat was not strong enough to ward off the cold. When I went to bed, the snow was falling so thickly you couldn’t see too much. Some mornings it was still snowing. Some windows were covered in icy snow so you couldn’t see out. We used to open the storm door, pushing it through the snow, so we could an idea of how much snow fell. We waited for no school. We drove my mother crazy begging to go outside. By afternoon she was done in and we went outside and froze.

My father used a metal shovel to clear the snow from the steps down the sidewalk to the street. It was the same shovel he used to dig holes or move dirt. It wasn’t very big. My father always took a while, but he cleared the paths and the steps down so deeply you could see what had been under the snow. The rest was up to the plows. He had done his duty.

I’ll leave my backdoor light on tonight. I can keep an eye on the storm. The dogs too like to check out the snow from inside the house. It will be a quiet, cozy night.

This entry was posted on January 25, 2026 at 12:42 pm and is filed under Musings. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.