It is minus 5 degrees at 5 a.m. on this windy Sunday morning in the valley. It could be worse; we were expecting 10 below!
Skies are clear and brilliant in the pre-dawn darkness. I feel I am walking with my head among the stars. A crescent moon is hovering at eye level, and beneath my feet the snow has drifted all around, like sand dunes in a polar desert.
Despite the beauty, I cannot ignore the cold. My big dog may be clad in a thickly-knit wool coat, but he is shivering against me, and his legs are stiffening from the cold.
As we hurry back toward the house, I lift my head for one last look into the starry sky.
But I don't see a thing. Ice has thickly formed on the lenses of my eyeglasses!
*Monday morning... 20 below zero at my Concord, OH home at dawn, with high of MINUS ONE! (MINUS 25 at Chardon, OH
*Tuesday morning... 16 below zero at dawn with forecast high of 10.
All week long to be polar! (Ah, February!)
