Moss under snow

I didn't expect to wake up this morning and see that, overnight, we'd had a visitor: an unexpected, and, as near as I can remember, unforecast, dusting of snow. But there it was, the thinnest blanket of white. There was no accumulation on the roads, which were merely wet. But on the rock walls, the leaf litter, and the meadow grasses, there was winter's calling card, showing for the first time. By the end of the day, the remnants of what the Weather Channel called Winter Storm Dion had moved far offshore and the sun was out. Most of the snow was gone, but if you walked into the colder parts of the woods—the places that stay in deep shadow—the white persisted, half-hiding the fern-leafed Thuidium mosses. If I hurried—more snow's in the forecast—I could still work on mastering bryology.