SAYING GOODNIGHT TO THE DAY...

    A quiet walk with my dog in late afternoon...

    The sky was darkening early; the daylight competing with thick, drooping snow clouds.

     Westward, a nebulous eye in the sky was struggling to find its way through the snow screen. It was the sun--barely visible, yes, but what else could it be?--casting a subtle, mysterious glow through the snowfall. It was magical.

     My big dog stood quietly leaning against me, and we watched as the sun slid down to the trees and beyond.
    And the aura was gone.

THE DEEP, DEEP COLD OF WINTER...

  
   
    The day has ended as it began; bitterly cold!
 

   Tonight will be colder than any of these days and nights, our weather people say.
 

    And yet, I look out to the western horizon after sunset and find some comfort in the beauty of the subtle parfait strata left behind in the dusk; perfect lines of blended pewter, silver, bronze, salmon, apricot and purple, unique to early evenings of cold winter.
 

    Trouble is, the day has been endless in its icy discomfort...

    And the splendid artwork of day's end is gone in moments.

 

  (HIGH TODAY: MINUS ONE)

SUNDAY MORNING FREEZING DOWN...

    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!)