Let it Rain, Sleet, Snow

Over the last few days we have experienced quite an array of offerings from Mother Nature. The middle of the week brought us temperatures approaching 70 degrees along with occasional light rain. Instead of a gradual change from warm to cold, a cold front moved through our area Thursday night. The front was supposed to bring a 50 degree temperature drop within the span of an hour, and winter precipitation. The precipitation was going to change from warm rain to freezing rain and then to snow. The snow accumulation was predicted to be – wait for it – up to one inch/2.5 centimeters. We waited until the sun was going down on Thursday afternoon to blanket the horses so we didn’t roast them in the warm temperatures and the sun. Jason and I got all the blankets on, doing a good portion of the work using headlamps in the dark. You are welcome unappreciative horses.

As has become standard operating procedure in our part of the south, the schools were closed on Thursday evening while it was still warm and doing nothing. I called my mom to see if she had made any preparations. She said she had gone to the grocery store – the one hidden in a subdivision that no one knows about that we call the secret Publix – and she said it was so busy she couldn’t find a parking spot. The secret Publix is usually empty, not because Publix is not awesome, but because no one knows this particular Publix exists. The southern tradition of the grocery store stampede before the possibility of a snowflake falls from the sky becomes more intense with each passing year. I’m ok with the grocery store stampede, the roads don’t get treated and no one knows how to drive on even a dusting of snow, so having food supplies and staying home is a wise idea in the south. I’m not as down with closing the schools on a possible forecast. It doesn’t pose a problem for us if the schools are closed, I just think it’s stupid to have a snow day when there isn’t a snowflake of snow.

The big temperature drop did come Thursday night. The winter precipitation made an appearance that I cannot even describe as half-hearted. We got about 2 minutes of light sleet mid morning on Friday and maybe 10 snow flurries. That was it it. They closed the schools for absolutely nothing. There was no more winter precipitation the rest of the day. The roads were never in danger of not being perfectly clear. As you went north from us eventually there was enough snow to put a dusting on the ground. Nashville and the suburbs north of Nashville probably had an inch or so of snow.

On Saturday morning the snow stepped up its game. We got visible flurries, and for maybe thirty minutes one could describe it as heavy flurries. It wasn’t enough to even add up to a dusting on the ground. But it was still considerably more than the 10 snowflakes that fell on Friday. Carter’s life goal of building a snowman remains unfulfilled. I keep telling him that one day it will happen, that mommy had the opportunity to build a snowman a couple of times when she was growing up in middle Tennessee. At this point he believes me as much as I believe our weather forecasters.

It looks like we will get to repeat the entire experience this week, minus the close to 70 degree temperatures. Supposedly we might get another “winter storm” on Monday evening. We are told this one could bring snow accumulation of up to three inches (7.5 centimeters). If that happens the schools will be closed for a week. The hope is that Carter might get to build his snowman, finally, after several winters of hoping. We’ll see what Mother Nature thinks about snowman dreams.

I got the attention of Lofty, Gus and Romeo when they saw me dragging blankets in the pasture . . .

. . . they thought I was surely dragging an agent of death through the pasture . . .

. . . They convinced the other horses in their pasture that there was safety in numbers. They all joined in to stare at the deadly blanket being drug through the pasture. George, Lotus, Romeo, Donneur, Gibson, Silver, Lofty . . .

. . .Flyer and Cocomo were interested but not on high alert . . .

. . . in the neighboring pasture Alfie, Taylor, Baner and Remmy also went on alert watching me drag blankets

The rest of the pictures are from our big snow on Saturday. Alfie (left) and Taylor eating hay as the flurries started. If you look very closely around the back of Alfie you can kind of see some snowflake streaks in the picture

Art, Merlin, Havana and Cino eating hay. If you get out your microscope and really study this picture you will see a snowflake falling on Art’s green blanket and one snowflake on Cino’s blue blanket.