The Perfect Storm

Now THAT'S how you do a blizzard!  21 inches of snow here in Northfield, MN in 24 hours.  A forty mile per hour gale roaring down out of Canada, the climatological equivalent of a brass knuckle punch to the temple.  The sadistic snow plow driver who times his trips up the street for the exact moment you finish shoveling the end of the driveway... until eventually the drifts reach an uneasy, gravity-defying equilibrium.

Then... peace.  Silence.  Except for the tinkling sound of the bottom breaking off the thermometer and the mercury dripping out.  But there is nothing like The Day After.  Crystal clear skies. Crisp dry air that virtually crackles as you breath it in (or is that the sound of my lungs freezing?). Bright sun dancing and bouncing of the scalloped dunes of snow.  You ask yourself, "How can the sun be so brilliant, but the air stay so cold?"  Then you consider the corollary: "How cold would it be if it wasn't for this beautiful sun?"  And then, at approximately 4:47 when the sun dips below the oaks on the hill to the west, you know exactly how cold it would be without it.

And you head inside to a crackling oak fire, thankful that even though humans have forgotten that oaks nourished us for millenia, we still haven't forgotten its ability to warm us - body and soul - through another Minnesota blizzard.