Snow and Cats

Yesterday began with freezing rain, which turned into snow.  About eight inches of it fell over 14 hours - light, dry stuff, so it was easy to sweep off the balcony.  But since it had rained first, there was a coating of ice under all the snow, which made clearing off the car and driving quite interesting.  I drove slow and steady, and watched as other car fish-tailed all over the place.  Had to go out twice yeaterday, taking cae of Pip and Squeak.  The second time out, another four inches of snow had fallen, but since I had cleared the car earlier, it was a cinch to brush off.
   It was 21 degrees when I went out this morning, but no car cleaning was necessary.  Squeak, however, saw a sparrow on the far side of the koi pond as I opened the door, and ran outside.  After proceeding about ten feet, she realized that snow was up to her belly, and she ran back inside.  Pip sat demurely by the open door during her sister's little run.
   Beatrice pulled an extremely soft and bright-colored afghan from her closet yesterday, and made it an offering to the cats.  Lovey claimed it immediately. She's curled up on it right now, sleeping in the living room, instead of curled up on my bed.  Nedi, too, is asleep in the cat tree in the living room.  That's pretty unusual.  Normally, they are both here in my bed, when I'm working on the PC in the morning....
  A light breeze is picking up, and I'm watching the branches of the fir trees dump their burdens of snow, and spring back into an upright position.  Sometimes the dropping snow startles sparrows and finches that have taken refuge near the tree bole, and they come blasting out to see what's happening before going back into cover...
   Day three of the government shut-down.  I think it will take a few days for both sides to agree to something...  We'll see.