The sky started to clear just before noon today, so I ran out and got some photos. I love seeing my forest completely crystalline, and an iced-over Buck Mountain in the front yard is pretty gorgeous. Then the sun came out, and all the ice came crashing down with a giant melty sluicing sound.

Tonight a great fog descended after dark, and driving home was even more of an act of faith than usual. It’s a good thing that I have the feeling of driving my road burned so deeply in my kinetic memory that I don’t need to see much to navigate it. As long as the deer, foxes, dogs, horses, cows, possums, raccoons, and errant absentminded drivers stay out of my path, I’m okay!

Another storm is supposedly on the way. Maybe tomorrow we’ll have proper snow pictures!

Well, that was the best kind of winter storm. Hyped just enough to get us all excited, but delivering only enough precipitation to make things look interesting without damaging trees or taking down the power (at least not here—others in Central Virginia weren’t so lucky). Perfect. Here are some scenes from this morning. Too bad the sun’s not out—that would have made for some beautiful photos. Instead, it’s so dark out it looks like 4:30 p.m. After three days of grey, I am definitely ready to see the sun again.

But it looks like more snow is on the way tonight and tomorrow…and this storm hasn’t been hyped at all which usually means it will amount to something!

It’s 2:00 p.m. and the precipitation is really starting to come down now, changing from sleet to snow to freezing rain and back again.

I just spent some time outside to check on the chickens and refill the bird feeders, which are the most popular spot in the neighborhood right now. The birds know to gorge themselves when bad weather is on its way.

I suspect that if this pace keeps up we’re going to have a real mess in Central Virginia tonight. Most weather forecasters are calling for between a quarter and a half an inch of ice tonight, but some are predicting a severe ice storm with up to an inch of ice and several days without power. Bad news for the trees and power lines.

I just made a few more preparations for what is starting to seem like an inevitable power outage. I realized that if the power goes out in the night I would most likely damage myself trying to get on and off an icy porch in the pitch black with armfuls of firewood. So I brought enough wood for the evening and tomorrow morning onto the back porch and stacked it right by the door, along with kindling. Now if I have to get the wood stove started in the dark it’s less likely that I will break my neck in the process.

By the time I was done both the dog and I were covered with a nice coating of sleet.

Tucker was well on his way toward becoming a popsicle and seemed pretty ready to be let back in the warm house.

While I was out taking some photos the neighbor kid ran out to the road and gingerly stepped on it. Then he slid in his boots on the ice before turning around and running home. He seemed pretty ecstatic at the thought of what will most likely be a snow day tomorrow.

[Written last night, but not posted before the internet cut out from the wind.]

It was a strange day. Spent all last night and today waiting for a predicted severe weather event that never happened, at least not here. A magical, beautiful package arrived, and I did lots of reading about unseen forces, struggling with suspension of disbelief versus emotional intelligence and things I see right in front of me clear as day. Change is afoot in this house, and I welcome it.

I looked up around 7:30 this evening to see the most golden light I’ve ever experienced here flooding the yard. Each clover in the lawn was aglow. Of course I ran to it with the camera and this is what I came away with in the minute and and twelve seconds it was alive. Tucker was nosing around next to me. Maybe that’s a lens flare, maybe it’s his aura? Purple and green, the head and the heart, spirituality and nature.

Now it’s very windy as a cold front, maybe more, comes through, and the lights and internet connection keep flicking off and on. I hear the branches tossing outside, and it sounds like the ocean.

And what a doozy it was!

A  snowstorm last Friday and Saturday dropped a “historic” two feet of snow on the farm. The roads weren’t clear enough to get up to the house until late Tuesday night, when the Intrepid Tractorplower arrived to clear the driveway for the siding delivery later this week. Thanks go to I.T. for both the photos and his mad snowclearing skillz.

I can’t wait until next year when I’ll be able to awake to these wintry views and make my own footprints through the fields.

The board and batten siding was installed on the second floor last week. That will all be painted one color, same as the siding below, so my house will lose its charming zebra stripes. As soon as the horizontal siding–which was delayed in the storm–arrives and is installed, the exterior of the house will be truly buttoned up and work will head inside, where the HVAC ductwork has been completed and the plumbers are now roughing in for fixtures.