The high temperature today was 2 degrees. Cold. The wood stove did its work. The chickadees and tree sparrows and woodpeckers kept busy at the feeders. Snow fell early and clouds passed in and out the rest of the day. It wasn’t summer.

And the wind blew. It howled. It battered the house. It buffeted the windows. It whipped the snow. Snow eddied on the porch and piled against the door. Snow gathered on the lee side of snow banks. It formed drifts in the road. The wind-chill adjusted temperature was about 25 degrees below zero. Not a day for sunbathing.

The driveway drifted in. That does not often happen but this is the kind of day it would drift in. It is a long driveway, next to a meadow, so I suppose it is to be expected. The house came with snow fencing when we bought it. We have never put it up as it hasn’t been needed. Our plow guy made an extra trip today.

This afternoon I took a few laps around the field on my skis. The track that my son and I made yesterday afternoon was almost totally hidden in drifting snow. We had to make that track because the previous one got snowed in. So I followed the track I could  find and broke a new one where the track had disappeared. Snow blasted against my jacket, although I was well covered. My eye lashes froze from my breath’s condensation.

The second time I looped around, much of my track had vanished again and the rest was hard to see. This happened each time. It was not fast skiing. The day, however, was beautiful. The landscape changed by the moment. Snow swirled in misty towers and sped low across the road. The sun shone periodically and the world glowed when it did. I stayed out for while before filling the bird feeders, hauling in more firewood, and settling inside again.

Ski tracks after fewer than ten minutes

Tonight the low is forecast at -13. That’s exciting. It likely won’t get out of the single digits tomorrow. It has been three weeks since the temperature got above freezing. Looks like that won’t happen again for a while. Still, I’ll get outside and enjoy the snow. Meteorological spring, after all, is a mere five weeks away.