Ramble with Storm: White Christmas?

Mulling things on my morning ramble with Storm, our family’s mixed Lab.

I don’t think we will officially meet criteria for a White Christmas, but at least we got enough to lighten things up.

I was sorely disappointed when I woke up this morning and we had not received even the little bit there were forecasting. But as I knocked out some work before the family doings of Christmas, snow started falling.

What a difference a little snow can make on Christmas. At least in my world, it adds to the day.

So the snow was coming down good as we set off.

It inspired me enough that we stretched out an extended ramble. Out on the far edge, the Canada geese on the lake to the west began raising a racket. I thought maybe I would get a photo of them taking flight into the snowy predawn, but no, they just raised a racket.

I decided to take a long walk on the ice of the north old clay pit with the meathead. As we came down the bank, a lone mourning dove flushed. Explain to me what a social bird like a dove is doing by its lonesome.

The ice, with the snow on top, was far slicker than I expected. The meathead was doing those clownish four-leg sprawls, so I eased back to shore.

By the time we were back in town, the snow had stopped and the bank thermometer read 23 degrees. That’s nearly 20 degrees warmer than yesterday morning, the south wind bit it colder.

A gray squirrel made tracks across the sidewalk from the bur oaks a street over and leaped up a telephone pole.

My thermometer behind the garage had 19 degrees.

Not officially a white Christmas, but enough to paint it white.

The official definition of a White Christmas, as I remember it and a meteorologist had on theweatherprediction.com, is 1 inch on the ground. We are no where near that, but nice all the same.