So I just wanted to share a few more "barnyard" images, because the snow has already slipped, dripped and drizzled away, taking that special felted silence with it. But for just a little while, I could make believe I lived somewhere high in the Alps or thereabouts. Without snow tires.
Shadow the rabbit was more at home in the winter white, coming out for daily doses of sun, and making himself the rather impertinent visitor in the henhouse, where I had put the animals' water as it kept freezing over. Yes, it can get that cold in the south, too, just not so often.
Gitane (or Gypsy), our friend's trekking horse, already had a very thick coat and is long accustomed to year-round outdoor life, so she was fine but very alert for any potential snacks offered by humans, crunchy carrots proffered by mittened children being a choice treat. Her water source, the (now whitewater) creek, never froze.
As you might suspect, this video by Sean Stiegemeier was not taken in my backyard, but it did make me dream of snow. Perhaps it will do the same for you. Have an excellent winter weekend.
Or rather, here's what it was like around my house as I was snowed in for two days. No way I was getting my 
The (young) chickens were really petrified of the fluffy white stuff and refused to venture out of their house for food until I had cleared a nice big spot for them. The Weimaraner capered and raced around, having spent too much time curled up indoors. 
I'm fairly certain the potted lavender were less thrilled than the dog.
...and this...
This all happened in a matter of moments, or so it seems. Spoiled with an endlessly balmy November, we rolled blithely into blackest December. Boy, do I ever resent the guy who came up with Daylight Savings Time for robbing me of those last rays of light. All the radiators have been flicked up a notch to accomodate the drop in temperature. Will we have a white Christmas? It would be atypical for the Languedoc these past few winters. But stock up anyway on the few aromatic ingredients for vin chaud, or mulled wine. For when you're snowed in, or when you just want to pretend that you are.
