Moisture!

Wednesday, the high temperature in Boulder was 64 degrees (F); Tuesday, the high was 75 degrees.  It's now 30 degrees and snowing, and today's and tomorrow's high temperatures might be 34 degrees.  The most important thing, however, is the falling snow.  The forecasters have said that we might end up with two inches of snow on the ground.  We need much, much more.  Since the temperatures have been so warm, the snow melted when it first started to fall around 5 o'clock this morning.  The parking lot for my apartment complex is just beginning to show an accumulation of snow, and it has already blanketed roofs and grassy areas.  My morning walk with Rosie has been cancelled, but I'll probably be over at her house for a couple of hours this afternoon.  (The afternoon schedule is a wait-and-see item from her owners.)
   The last few weeks, when I have walked from Rosie care to the bus stop, I've crossed the Peace Lutheran Church's field that is also a playground.  It's been strange to watch the ground shrink and dry up, leaving little plaques of dirt among the dried grasses, and to notice the cracked areas around the plaques getting wider and wider, for lack of moisture.  Then, too, I can see my previous footprints, and watch them settle more deeply into the parched ground.  With the area this dry, I am glad that we have snow coming down.  If it had been rain (which I prefer, being from the South), the ground would have been too dry to be able to absorb the water, and there would have been an over-abundance of run-off, taking the top layer of soil with it.  I know very well that it's silly, but, in a way, I'd love a huge snow storm that would keep everyone at home for a week so that we could replenish the earth's moisture.
    Nedi ran out into the early snow, decided that it was better under the coffee table, and then, when a swirl of snow covered him (even there), he decided to come back in.  I haven't seen our local squirrels, but the smaller birds have been visiting our bird feeder, and the local raven family has just appeared to visit the Vietnamese dumpster.  I think I'll work on family genealogy today....