Mother Nature took out her bottle of chilled powder and tried out a dusting on the mountain this past week. Everywhere I looked, the dark green of the ponderosa pines was made darker in contrast to the pristine white of new fallen snow. There were about 5-6 inches on the ground, but it was warming and, in the tracks of the road, had already turned to a nice facial mudpack.

The trees, though! The beauty took my breath away, the tops of each one's branches outlined just perfectly, to the tip of each individual needle and, because there was no wind, it stayed in place. The aspen were more sparing in their use of coverup with only their bare branches to catch each flake. It did line the length of their trunks, on the north side, as it had on the pines, but the aspens, already so white, looked more like geishas than ever with an extra bit of powdering.

Sitting under the guy wires, stretching from the top of the 300 foot antenna to the ground, I was glad for the cover of the truck. The afternoon sun at 8600 feet was quite strong. Slices of icy snow, balanced on the tightrope wires, weakened with melting and one at a time would plummet to the ground. Some would twirl like whirly-gigs, while others fell like the Sword of Damacles. All were large enough, the dog and I were quite sure we didn't want to take a chance on being targetted.

It was fun, though, to soak up the rays, watch the birds, and listen for the fatal crash as each sliver fell. Then, we drove back through the hollow of deep, darkness, filled with pines and quiet solitude, a perfect balance to the earlier fun of kamikaze snow slivers.