Weather Bulletin

There's exciting weather coming this way, and about time, too.  I like a cold winter, but I especially like it if the ground is covered with snow, and even more if the sun is shining on that snow.  Although it's been below freezing for days, the snow melted during the last weird warm spell and now the ground is bare.  I think about my lavender bushes and how they must long for a snowy duvet to keep their feet warm. 

The news and weather channels are doing their usual apocalyptic song and dance about the expected blizzard.  Don't they realize that with their perpetual hype they are desensitizing the population to real threats?  Of course this coming storm may be a real threat, but how are we to know, when high drama is the staple of these shows?

Still, in preparation for what might come I did send my spouse to the nearest village to buy... not bread or milk or toilet paper, but laying mash.  I figure as long as the hens are fed and happy, we'll have eggs.  We still have plenty of veggies that I harvested and put in the freezer last summer.  And there's some quinoa in the pantry that I bought in a fit of nutritional idealism and should find a use for before it goes bad.  (Does quinoa, "the grain of the Aztecs," ever go bad?)

On the whole, I am not displeased at the prospect of a big old snow storm.  I've been out of the house a lot recently, and I could use a day or two of cocooning. My needlepoint could use some attention, and my Kindle is fully charged.  Not to sound frivolous, but I like the sense of adventure that a blizzard brings.  I sympathize with all those who have work they must go to and roads they must travel.  I especially sympathize with working parents of school-age children.  I feel their pain.  There was one February back in the 1970s when I thought I would go out of my mind if there was one more school closing.  That said, I plan to stay in the moment and enjoy the view out the window.

The snow has started and the wind is blowing hard.  I'm keeping the hens locked in their shed.  You fellow northeasterners, stay warm and safe.  Those of you in warmer climes, wish us luck.  Bulletins will be forthcoming.