The promised snow had yet to arrive at daybreak, so, after I'd finished writing captions to go along with the pictures that accompanied my weekly natural history newspaper column, I headed outside to take advantage of the still-good weather to cut more wood, split it, and get everything either under proper cover or inside. With the temperature hovering around 30 and the sky turning increasingly gray, I knew I'd have to work fast. As noon approached, the first tentative flakes of very dry snow started to fall, and so, whether I was completely done or not, I gathered up the chainsaw, the maul, the sledge, the wedges, and everything else, and called it a day. We'd be fine. This was not, after all, a blizzard in the making—just a little clipper system that might give us enough snow to cross-country ski on. But at the height of the unnamed storm, there wasn't enough on the ground to warrant putting on snowshoes for my trek. Heavy-duty boots were more than sufficient to navigate the roads and enjoy this brief return to proper winter at the millpond and beyond. Would that the white blanket might last, but the long-range forecast is not looking hopeful.