All the leaves are brown, against the blue sky, and it’s obvious something hard came this way. The big oaks look weary. The leaves are burned, but oddly, none have fallen to the ground.

The other day I went searching for information on what happens when the earth’s magnetic poles flip. I found it. It didn’t really fit into the essay for the day. So, I moved on. The internet, however, has not moved on.

It appears the natural order is reestablishing itself. Mama cat spent the night outside after having spent the previous eight days bunked down on the king bed with me while the rest of the world froze.

This is about grief. So, turn away if that bothers you. Yesterday started out with much promise. The weather had warmed, the sun was out, the roads were clear, and I had a list of errands to run.

As I suspected, the snow in my little piece of Texas departed the scene with the arrival of the sun. Its exodus sped up when the temperature crossed 32. The pasture is once again wearing its brown winter uniform while the winter greens are still green.

I like the silence of snow. It falls with grace and arrives in dignity. It’s in no hurry to leave, either. Unlike its cousin the rain, which splatters and clatters and is always rushing off to get somewhere else, snow sits around, enjoys the view, and waits for the sun.

Well, this weather event is interesting, in that Chinese curse sort of way, may you live in interesting times. All week long I was looking toward today and relief, only to realize last night that we have another round of winter scheduled for today.

Woke up to the sound of snow melt this morning when I went out onto the porch. Our temperature is 33 and promises to go a little bit higher today. We’re still scheduled for hard, cold nights, but it seems the weather picture is shifting back to our favor here in Central Texas.

I made a pot of beans yesterday. Which seems relatively mundane until you realize it took a crock pot eight hours to do it. And yesterday there were people unable to even heat themselves much less run a crock pot for eight hours.

First, I am eternally grateful we still have power. Second, we’ve turned the thermostats down to 58, which isn’t something we do even in the dead of summer.

There’s a picture of a hug on my phone. It’s between me and my late wife. Her left cheek rests on my right breast, the top of her head close to my chin, her face turned to the camera. She’s smiling.

I hate to make a big deal out of something a lot of people experience all the time, but it is getting really cold. It’s going to be a where-were-you-when event.

All my trees and plants are bowed down paying homage to water. It started yesterday with a thunderstorm in 30-degree weather.

Last spring, I transplanted all my schoolhouse flowers. Moved them from the bed in the southeast corner of the yard to new spots around the house. There were enough bulbs that I was able to start three new beds.

As I was going about the business of tidying my yard and porches the other day, I noticed I have an inordinately large collection of broken pottery.

A crescent moon hangs low in the sky on this crisp winter morn. There are deer in the distance and nary a cloud in the sky. The horizon is gold and pink as my piece of earth turns toward the sun.

There’s a lantern in the trees at the end of the clearing behind my house. I can barely see it during the day, but at night it glows softly with a solar powered bulb until the energy gathered during the day is depleted.

I do believe I am victorious in a recent battle in the ongoing gadget war.

I got a dashcam for Christmas, but that’s not the story, just the beginning.