Winter

When I tottered into my office at 5:10 this morning, the full moon was shining on the blinds of my west window, so I opened them to view the beauty of the season's first snow palely gleaming in the moonlight.

Then I went into the kitchen to heat water for my morning tea, and I looked twice at our indoor-outdoor thermometer before I marveled aloud that it read 10.2 degrees. By the time the microwave beeped, it had dropped to 9.5 degrees (and--for all you Canadians readers--I'm talking Fahrenheit, not Celsius). I thought yesterday's stiff wind was bitter when the temperatrue dropped to 18 after sunset. But what a shock to see single digits in the middle of November! Especially so soon after many days of temperatures in the 70s or even lower 80s.

That’s Iowa, no real spring or fall, just jumping from one extreme to the other, often within the space of a few days and sometimes even in the same day.