After spending the long weekend on the coast enjoying a false spring, we returned to the Sierra foothills in time for a day-long snow frenzy. After a rainy fall it’s been a dry winter, so the precipitation was welcome. I was hoping to wake up to snowflakes this morning, but it was just cold and gray. An icy rain was trying to amount to something and not quite succeeding, so I went back to bed.

By noon Sam called to say it was snowing like crazy a few miles away at the school where he teaches. Several inches of snow on the ground by early afternoon shortened the school day as students headed home before traffic got any worse on the steep, narrow, winding local roads. California snow is a big deal.

Where we live southwest of town there were only flurries. I was disappointed until Sam arrived home with his truck bed lined in the fluffy white stuff. So of course I had to make a snowperson. I lugged buckets of snow to the front of the cabin and built my small but robust figure. What fun!