Another coolish day. This afternoon the temperature has finally reached 32.2F, but there's a gusty NNE wind that keeps the "feel-like" temperature in the mid 20s.
    Yesterday, late in the afternoon, I had been working steadily all day at my computer and decided I'd walk up Jamie and Marie's driveway to get some exercise and fresh air before supper. As I was heading out, I could see there was a light gray bank of precipitation moving down the valley from Walden, and there were a few snowflakes in the air, so I thought it would be snow, without a doubt. That wasn't a concern, but as I progressed up Jamie and Marie's hill, the wind did begin to concern me. There are big spruce trees along their driveway and this winter a couple of dead ones came down across the road in one of the wind storms we had. I could hear the wind roaring overhead and realized the trees ahead of me were bending and swaying crazily. I stopped to listen. The noise was impressive. As I stood there, thinking maybe it wasn't such a good idea to go any further, just in case another tree came down, and would I be quick enough to get out of the way, it began to snow very hard - but not snowflakes. It was little round beads of icy snow that bounced off my jacket and stung my face. The wind wasn't letting up and it didn't take long for me to decide this was no place I wanted to be. Exercise be darned - this was too much fresh air coming at me and I just knew I needed to get back down the hill into calmer weather. Strangely, at our house, the wind was nowhere near as violent, and by then the snow squall had passed. When I got back inside, I went to the window in the back bedroom and watched the big trees on the hill above us still swaying wildly in the wind. We thought there would likely be a power outage, but that didn't happen.
     From the kitchen window I could see the snow had moved down the pond and behind it, the sun was out. I looked for a snowbow (why not?) but there wasn't one. Only ugly dark clouds and stray rays of sunshine breaking through. Today I heard on the WCAX weather that there had been thunder storms in  some places yesterday. I doubt I would have heard the thunder above the wind.
     Also today on the news we heard that in some places in New York state, conditions are ripe for forest fires and there's a ban on all burning. Hard to imagine when we still have two feet of snow on the ground. 
     There are craters around all the trees and bushes now, and that is a good indication that things are beginning to thaw out - from the ground up. I'm confident it won't be long before we see patches of bare ground. In the meantime, Fred brought home some lovely tulips for me, and they brighten our space considerably. They may not last until I have daffies in the garden, but I sure appreciate them as a promise of spring to come, for as long as they last.