Snow?!?

This morning there was a beautiful sunrise, and I walked to the store under gorgeous skies.  At that time, a few low clouds were sitting on top of Flagstaff Mountain and the Flatirons.  Less than 90 minutes later, we are totally socked in by low grey clouds.  It's 32 degrees outside, and we're not expected to get any warmer during the day; there might be snow this afternoon and/or evening.  (The dusk-to-dawn lights at the hotel behind me turned off for all of 35 minutes, before automatically turning back on...)  And the weather person just said that we'll have a high of 48 tomorrow and 60 on Sunday.... hmmmmm.  Isn't it still January?  Is this what global warming is doing to us?  Or is it just La Nina?

Nedi just came running inside and hid under the bed.  I looked out to see what was going on, and discovered that a group of people were hooting and hollering over in the hotel parking lot.... because it is now snowing.  There are large flakes floating down; actually, they aren't floating.  These are heavy wet  flakes that are falling - not the light-weight icy crystals that dance in the wind.  Since we're just expecting a very light snow, I'll be heading out to grab Remy and Rosie for their walk in a bit.  Yesterday, we walked over to Wonderland Lake, and made a new friend.  We met Tundra, a half German Shepherd half Huskie, who was very happy to make new friends.  (We shared a lamb, sweet potato and pea treat.)  Then we met a new Lab-mix, and behaved well at that point, too. 

I had a good time examining a branch of the Snow family tree last night - one of the ladies lost her husband just after 13 years of marriage.  She lived to be 101, owned her own cloth factory business, had her sons join in the business, added a bank and opera house to the businesses, built several schools for girls, and opened a retirement home for older ladies (at the age of 93!).  She was born in 1790, and passed away in 1891.  She had quite a life, starting out as the youngest daughter of 12 children, with her parents hard-scrabble farmers on a rocky piece of high property in New Hampshire.  She died a multi-millionaire, and was making business decisions with her sons up until a week before her death.  She certainly saw a lot of change....  If you're interested in her story, you can read it in the Hebron Historical Society newsletter, starting on page 3 of the .pdf document (you will need an Adobe Reader, a free down load, to read this article):  http://www.hebronhistsoc.org/HHS_Gaz_6-1.pdf