Ice storm

It began yesterday, with a light rain. Temperatures dropped. By the late afternoon, a thin sheen of ice covered everything, including the lock on my garage. No matter, I wasn't going anywhere. The cat and I stayed inside by the woodstove, occasionally going out on the front porch to see how the trees looked. A couple of neighbors stopped by. At about 9 the power went out, so I read by camping lantern until it came back at 10.

Today it's snowing. The trees are still beautiful, that dangerous cracking beauty we get here once or twice a year. We had an ice storm earlier this season, which took out a nice young redbud across the street. There's a tree down the street that split for the second time, a huge section crashing down on the back deck of a neighbor's house. I walked down to look at it, taking a break from planning some workshops I'll be giving this spring for next summer's library reading program.

"Planning" is a loose term. I started thinking about these workshops last summer. Every now and then in the fall, I picked up a book or two and read through the manual. Today I wrote down more notes. I've promised an outline on Monday. I'll have it done, but most likely I won't work much on it until Sunday. I do best if I do some initial work long before a project is due. Then I leave it alone, letting ideas percolate on the back burner of my mind. When it's time to actually do the project, these ideas pour out into a good strong brew. (Weird metaphor--I don't like perked coffee unless I'm camping.)

Time to put another log in the woodstove.