The rest of the story

See, the baby lived and will have a wonderful story of his cool birth parents before they lost custody. https://t.co/hIJKpmKGfR

— Lloyd Legalist (@LloydLegalist) December 4, 2018

Shoveling snow off the deck to our golden retriever to catch and fetch.

Slowly, but surely

hat tip CDR M

The first snowstorm in 37 years at the Sahara desert

Conde Nast Traveler has photos here from a recent snowstorm in the Sahara desert!

Photo by Karim Bouchetata/Shutterstock

Some grim humor from The Onion

The Onion reports,

CHICAGO—The city of Chicago is steadily recovering from an overnight snowstorm that delayed hundreds of murders on Friday morning and will likely continue to push numerous homicides across the city drastically behind schedule, public authorities announced. “As we speak, maintenance crews are working diligently to restore public transportation, de-ice roads, and clear back alleyways so that Chicagoans can quickly resume murdering again,” Department of Streets and Sanitation spokesman Dave Michelson said of the heavy blizzard, which caused numerous homicide cancellations this morning at peak murder times. “Unfortunately, we’re backed up by about 35 deadly shootings at the moment, but we hope to restore regular death tolls as soon as possible. We apologize to anyone forced to postpone shootings or other killings today and assure concerned murderers that they will be able to resume slayings by the early afternoon.” At press time, authorities reported that murders were up and running in many parts of the city, with four teenagers already gunned down on Chicago’s South Side.

"The work would whisper done when there wasn't any more of it."

Is it cold where you are? Gerard Vanderleun links to a piece by SippicanCottage:

We were out of firewood. Well, not out, exactly; I'm a fool, but not that big of one. There were still three cords sleeping in the back yard where we stacked them in August to dry. But there was no more in the house. We'd put three cords in the basement, and all but a few junks were gone in a puff of woodsmoke already. It will rain again tomorrow, and be miserable to be outside, and handling firewood in the rain is a penance not to be inflicted on the innocent. The time to get more was today.

My son came out with me. He shows no enthusiasm, but does not complain. It's the mark of an adult, I think. The sun looked like a cataract and hung low in the sky, skulking across the horizon for the few hours it deigns to shine in January, and looks ashamed of itself the whole time. You could look right at it, but why would you? You look at the ground right in front of you, and that's that. We shoveled the top layer of snow and ice to get halfway to the ground, and walked on the skin of ice over the first heaping of snow as we went. The ice was almost strong enough to hold my weight for every footfall, but every once in a while the heel of my boot would punch a hole in it, and my knee would hinge backwards and remind me that I hit a hurdle when I was in tenth grade and that I wrecked a car when I was nineteen. Winter is very solicitous here, and worries you might get the Alzheimer's, and tries to help you remember things.

My son, who is no longer a child, really, never flagged, never complained once. We spoke almost not at all, because there wasn't much to say. The work would whisper done when there wasn't any more of it. I thought to myself that I would not have been able to do it without him to help me. I wondered -- I very dearly wished -- he might say the same thing about me.

Read more here.

First snow, then late day sun

When I woke up this morning, snow was on the ground. Our first snow of the season. It snowed pretty much all day after the morning sunrise.

Then, about 4 o'clock, it ended. The sun came out, and I knew we were going to get a beautiful sunset.

Sure enough, the sky gave us a pink smile.

Is this how you react to snow?

Coldest and snowiest

Joseph D’Aleo writes at Ice Cap,

Though the media wants to focus on the western warmth and drought, the bigger story has been the cold and snow to the east the last two winters.

Chicago had its coldest December to March in the record back to 1872 and third snowiest winter in 2013/14, Detroit had its snowiest winter since 1880.

2015 was the coldest January through March in the entire record in the 10 Northeast States and DC

Read more here.

Thanks to Bird Dog at Maggie's Farm.

White trees

Last week one of my treats was to look out my windows and see white blossoms covering the apple trees. This evening the trees are still white, even though the blooms finished. Why? A wet snow fell all day today.

"Just don't go!"

More snow? "Just don't go!"



Thanks to Ann Voskamp

Her first snow

Sophie the cat lives in Alabama. Recently she encountered for the first time that white stuff we call snow. Something that we here in Colorado have been seeing a lot of this week, with more expected in the week to come.

The forecasters missed this one.

It has been snowing all morning. And, guess what? It was not in the forecast I read yesterday. Does that happen where you live? Do many people where you live complain about inaccurate forecasts? They do here. Luckily for the forecasters, we are not long without sunshine here in Colorado.