Frosty New Year!

 If the Sunday comics are any indication, I’m not the only one feeling post-holiday grumpiness. I always get it, but this year I feel like I never really had that Christmas spirit, in spite of watching Hallmark films every evening. It’s a new year, and it’s no different than the end of the last year. Yes, the vaccine is a light at the end of the tunnel, but we don’t know how long it will take us to get back to the sunshine. The only thing we know is that it won’t be fast enough.

The new year has brought dismal gray skies, snow mixed with freezing rain, followed by rain, and back to snow. The driveway is glaciated.

The weather report today said, “Freezing fog.” With my limited knowledge of meteorology, freezing fog is the runner up to thunder snow for inexplicable weather events. You would think at 20°F, all the water would be frozen out of the air, but no. Freezing fog can be terrifying if black ice forms on the roads. That didn’t seem to happen this time. I suspect a great deal of prophylactic salting  

Frost on the weathervane

I will admit, the frost was beautiful. I took my camera with me when I went out to do the chicken chores.

Pines

Close-up of white pine needles

The frost covered trees made the landscape look like an enchanted fantasy world.

Oak trees

Tree branches and forbes covered in frost

This kind of frost doesn’t happen often and almost never persists all day long. It doesn’t take much wind to knock the ice crystals off, but today was dead calm all day. If anything, the trees were whiter this afternoon than this morning.

Alas, the three-day forecast shows no sunshine. We hang on, trying to stay warm and well. We don’t get Christmas cards in the mail any more, but more seed catalogs arrive every day. I’ll start going through them soon, hoping for spring.