After a taste of spring, we are in the midst of another good old-fashioned Minnesota blizzard.  I love a blizzard.  Here in Minnesota, snowfalls come and stay for the winter every year, but a real pileup, one that sends people en masse to the markets and shops the day before it’s to hit, is always exciting.

When we lived in the city and our Honey Girl and Sweet Boy were little pips, we had a blizzard tradition.  We would haul out a little wooden sleigh, pile on the snow clothes—the hats and mittens and scarves and coats and snow pants and wooly socks and boots—and I would pull them to our neighborhood ice cream shop for a blizzard ice cream cone.  We’d clear the snow from our eyelashes and wipe our noses and brush off and warm up a little bit while we licked our cones and watched the snow, fierce or gentle, bring down a hazy blanket of white.  Then I’d pull them home and we’d make hot chocolate to warm up.  It was a triple treat, all that snow and ice cream and hot chocolate.  It was fun for me to celebrate like a kid again.  We often wondered why the faithful people at the Grand Ole Creamery were open in the winter, let alone during a blizzard; we always seemed to be the only customers on those days.  But we were thrilled they were.  We don’t live in the neighborhood anymore, but whenever we have a blizzard, I think about pulling my little ones on that sleigh over for another cone.  Now I just make an extra yummy mug of hot chocolate: one for me and one for my Sweet Boy, since our Honey Girl is away at college.  We toast to winter and watch the snow blur and soften the world outside again.The hazy blue light of the blizzard is so lovely.

The Arctic air moves in.  …  The sky clears.  …  The temperature drops.  …  The wind chill drops below zero.  …  Clarence, my station wagon, gets stuck in a snow bank.  …  My Dear Husband shovels.  …  The snow plow pushes eight feet of snow into a bank at the end of our driveway.  …  Clarence skids on the ice.  …  The back door is snowed shut.  …  Annie settles in for a long nap.  …  We celebrate winter in Minnesota.

How can you help but be a little giddy, when you wake up and this is the view from your window?  I squealed a little and Annie and I skipped around the house.  Then I put on some Christmas carols, pulled on some clothes and an apron, and started baking Lebkuchen and Pfeffernusse.  Oh how I love the first snowfall of the year!  I snapped these pictures standing at our front door under the eaves our house.

The snow light has come today to Minnesota, leaden and soft.  And it smells like snow is coming, the first of the season.  The sky is ashen, colorless; soon the long winter will be here.  I’m suddenly aware that the birds have gone.  I snapped a few pictures on the trails this morning with one hand while Annie pulled at her leash.  I suspect the prairie grasses will be blanketed in snow by tomorrow.