Is it too soon to say that? Because I know it’s only late November and I know we have a long way to go yet, but this first snowfall only served to remind me that I hate Winter and I don’t know what my ancestors were thinking when they came all this way and then just stopped. I know some of them kept going South but noooo, MY gene pool had to stay up here in the land of the stupidly humid summers and frigid icy winters. Yay!

No, okay, it wasn’t the end of the world today but it still sucked. On Wednesday, I stopped and took this picture of a path through a field. I was particularly taken with how vivid the green color of the grass still was, despite dropping temperatures and a bit of snow.

What a difference about 15 hours can make is all I have to say. Not that I can show you a picture because I wasn’t stopping for photo ops today and also I would not have taken my poor camera out and subjected it to the ice pellets that were falling at a 45-degree angle. Just trust me when I say that all of that field and path were covered in a crunchy mix of snow and ice pieces.

What was especially entertaining about being outside today was the lovely way that Mother Nature managed to have all that sleet blowing directly in your face regardless of the direction you were facing. Poor Breanna – I had tied her to me in my trusty Mei Tei wrap and she looked cozy all snuggled up against me until we actually walked out the door. I ended up having to shield her face on one side to block the pellets from hitting her in the cheeks. In her usual way, she looked neither upset nor impressed, but I think she was happy when it was all over and she could warm up on the couch while watching “Curious George” on PBS, something she likes to do these days:

Then she looked out the window for a bit, mumbled about snow, and propped herself up on the couch with a good book about babies and went back to pretending that nothing white and cold was falling outside the windows.

Hell, I like pretending that too.

Four or five months and counting…