Mother Nature's Valentine gift

After an unnaturally warm December and (most of) January, Winter has finally moved into the north-central region of Maryland (and many other places too, of course). A slow-moving coastal storm that began Monday evening and continued through Wednesday morning has dropped between five and six inches of mixed sleet, snow, and freezing rain -- mostly sleet -- on us.

Partial melting and compaction over the last two days has further compressed this into a layer of solid, white ice. It's really quite impressive, actually, as well as quite beautiful: I'm able to walk on top of it without sinking in, something that's rarely happened since I topped ??? lbs (what, did you think I was going to 'fess up?) some years ago, and the ice crystals sparkle with a diamond-like efect. It looks much like the top layer of a glacier; in fact, the whole effect is rather glacial-looking: I keep expecting a miniature mammoth to pop over a liliputian rise in the icy landscape!

But please don't get the idea I'm complaining. A half-dozen inches is nothing compared to the many feet they're digging out from, up in northern New York State, for instance, and the teens and twenties we're dealing with is balmy compared to, say, Minnesota. In fact, I'm kind of enjoying this. I had begun to fear we wouldn't really have a Winter, this year -- and I'm grateful to Mother Nature for thus ensuring that we really will appreciate Spring when it arrives!