Hard freeze reset

As summer faded into early autumn, I waxed poetically (or so I'm told) about the joys of the season of easy living while looking forward with no little trepidation to the coming winter.

Earlier in the week we got our first taste of wintry weather. The weekend had been rapturously beautiful, with gentle puffball skies, warming sunshine, temperatures nudging 70 degrees, and barely a puff of wind. I spent most of the daylight hours outside, attending to the manifold chores that grow like weeds around the ranch. It was glorious.

Nona and Red

Autumn range

The first ranch house

Tumbleweeds, fences, and next year's project

There she is

There she goes

Mmmmmm. Sodium and chlorine.

Ready for harvest

Autumn gold, shade 327.2

Autumn gold, shade 154.9

Light, shadow and iron oxide

Nature at play

Pferde Erwärmung in der Herbstsonne

On Tuesday nature did what nature does. It started with a line of gunmetal clouds on the far western horizon. The mercury tumbled, the winds freshened, and the snow fell.

As winter storms go it wasn't worth wasting ink on. A very mild, very vanilla weather event. But it was the first of the year, and it was cold and uncomfortable -- particularly as it came hard on the heels of a heavenish three days. I had to bundle up in layers, the roads were treacherous, I needed to engage the four wheel drive, and everything I had to do required the extra effort required to work in the cold, windy, freezing realm of not easy living.

First snow they've seen

Enduring

Frosted wheat ground

The storm left wind sculpted mini-drifts behind

One of the things the first storm does is reset the comfort gyro. Before the snow and wind and cold arrived, 40 degrees seemed quite chilly, particularly if there was a touch of breeze. After the storm, morning sunshine and a windless 30 degrees was pure ambrosia. In these conditions I hiked and fixed fence and chopped thin ice and reveled in nature's delightful beauty.

I don't know for sure, but I think life would be a grim experience without variety, and I suspect I'd be an empty husk if there were no harsh days to stand in contrast to the beautiful days.