Old Man Winter

February is when Old Man Winter

really freezes the Shire with his icy breath.

And the last several days have been no exception.

Saturday's gloomy gray skies and chilly biting wind 

brought in a few hours of snow,

which at first was a fine sifting,

followed by fat wet flakes of snow at the end.

image from en.wikipedia.org

After snow covered everything,

 the warm yellow lights from the houses in my cul-de-sac

 spilled out across the snow, illuminating the darkness.

There is something appealing about a dark and snowy night

and warm lights shining from houses,

especially if one is inside looking out.

photo courtesy of morguefile.com

All the snow became ice-capped overnight, 

causing my one tender daffodil blossom to disappear.

The camellia blossoms around the neighborhood 

were frosted in mid-bloom.

And some of the crackling layer of snowy ice remained 

on Monday morning on the deck behind my house.

But the sun came out, and the rest melted away by day's end.

photo courtesy of morguefile.com

And as a result of the crisp overlay of icy snow and the low temperatures,

I witnessed a phenomenon on several cars 

as I was driving about town this week.

Every now and again, a sheet of ice would loosen

and slide off  of the back of someone's car;

and as it hit the pavement,

 it would break into thousands of tiny glittering diamonds.

The effect was dazzling.

Yet an unremarkable event, I suppose;

but a string of  unremarkable events 

can become remarkable by their frequency,

and this happened so many times I felt like I was witnessing a ballet.

Father Winter may bring chilling cold and snow, 

but he at least tosses an occasional diamond into the ice.

It just goes to show that every cloud does have a silver lining.

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