I don't believe this...

Tess is spoiled. (Well, I do believe that.) John says she needs to get her feet wet more often, and with six inches of wet snow on the ground, what easier way than to turn her out in it? She doesn't dig under the snow for grass, the way some horses will. She just stands there and looks pitiful, or gets agitated and runs around whinnying. So I put some hay out on the snow to keep her occupied for an hour or so, while I cleaned the barn up and made up her stall for the night. As long as the hay lasted, she was fine. Single-minded even: "Food, food!" But as soon as it was gone, she began to run back and forth along the fence, hollering for me. That was at the 45 minute mark and everything was ready, so I went and got her. I don't need neighbors complaining about the noise, even though their kids and parties are often much worse. She's perfectly happy to be in that pasture when there is grass to eat. In fact, sometimes she doesn't want to come in when I go to fetch her. But when everything is all spooky and black and white, and she's alone out there with no bird noises or anything, she gets spooked I guess. I used to feel that way if I was out in the snow alone too, so I give in to her.

The utterly bizarre weather continues. Today we were up to the freezing point, with many icicles forming and the snow starting to settle. Now we have a "winter weather warning" and the forecast is for "wintry mix," which apparently it will be. Except for the thunder snow that is. They called for snow to begin at 9 pm, heavy at times with up to an inch per hour accumulation and possible thunder and lightning. Then it will warm a bit and turn to freezing drizzle on top of the snow, and tomorrow the temperature is going way above freezing, to 50°F/10°C, with more rain, possibly heavy and even more thunder. Smells like another tornado warning to me. Then as it cools off, tomorrow night, we will go back through sleet and freezing rain to more snow. These are the kind of conditions that resulted in a pea soup fog a couple of years ago with emergency shut downs of everything because traffic couldn't move safely at all. Warm wet air passing over the snowcover on the ground does a marvelous job of making fog.

It's already snowing hard, well ahead of the prediction. I wonder when the earthquake will be...