Dangerous

No, not yesterday's post about the pucker (how many people can I offend today?). Dangerous applies to our weather conditions. What an autumn! You can imagine how happy we are at the prospect of the actual winter beginning this coming week.

Yesterday the temperature went up above freezing in the afternoon, and the sun came out for a while. The morning snow started to melt on the roadway, especially where the sun could shine on it. In shady places, it just became a little slushy.

A wintry view of the Renaudière hamlet

Then overnight the temperature, of course, went back down below freezing. Those slushy spots on the road — even out on the gravel road through the vineyard — froze over and are exceedingly slick this morning. This is nothing unusual for people who live in regions where the winters are cold. In this part of France, it creates pagaille — havoc, chaos. Again today, many big trucks are parked on highways around the country, blocking lanes, because the drivers found it too dangerous to continue and had nowhere else to park.

Looking back toward our house and the maison de
vigneron from the vineyard. The tall conifer is ours.

I went out with the dog a while ago and I slipped and slid all along the way. It was dangerous for me, especially, because I am still not fully recovered from my ankle sprain. I got off the road to walk on grass and in places where there wasn't so much slick ice. Callie loves to go off the road, anyway, so she was happy. And then after a decent distance, I turned around and headed back home. It had started snowing again.

The north side of our neighbors' roof and the shaded patches
of the road were all frozen over this morning.

Walt just yelled up from downstairs: "Hey, we're having a blizzard!" It's coming down fast and furious right now. The snow is falling on slippery ice.