Yes, it is beautiful after the first snowfall. And so quiet you can almost hear a feather being ruffled by the wind.

And I finally got a clear shot of this hornet’s nest that I picked out through the trees last summer.

But it’s cold, too. This morning when I walked into the kitchen the thermometer read 1 degree Fahrenheit. “It’s dangerously cold,” Paul said. Karina and I waited for the temperature to rise into the double digits.

When it hit 10 degrees, I began layering on the thick socks, long underwear, heavy jeans, sweater with turtleneck to pull over my nose, down coat, hat, boots, gloves — and then I took a step and felt something sticking into my foot.  Oy….

It wasn’t so bad once we got out. No wind, and our neighbors John and Marie, assisted by their big, jolly lab, Yankee, had tramped out a short loop in the woods with their snow shoes.

It’s the time of year when I look longingly ahead to striding down clear pathways in a pair of my favorite shoes instead of trudging through snow and ice in my clumsy-but-warm winter boots.

For now though, I’m taking a page from AA: One day at a time.

(Good thing, too, because when I lifted my head to look outside after hitting “publish,” more snow was starting to fall.)