We’ve had a couple of good little snows over the last few days. A couple inches each, but on top of the ice that’s persisted for over a week thanks to subzero temperatures, it added up to a pretty wintry weekend. We actually ran out to the grocery store yesterday (Sunday) morning before the plow came out and I was, once again, astounded by the rampant stupidity of the standard American road monkey.

A couple of times, when I was leaving plenty of room between myself and the car in front of me, I had some schmuch in a little shitbox steaming up my tail. Now I was driving a fairly new All Wheel Drive Forester, and it was behaving quite well. In my rear view I was watching – at one point on the way home – some jerk in a little Mazda fishtailing all over the road. And in spite of being barely able to make it up a few of the inclines that weren’t even that steep, he would get right up behind me on the downhill track. I mean, I’m watching the guy almost go off the road as he slams on the brakes, and he still never learns his lesson.

What is the problem with people? I understand that it can be stressful to drive at a safe speed in the snow. I know that a lot of people just want to get it over with as quickly as possible. But I’m not exactly an old lady in the snow. I actually drive a lot more aggressively in bad weather than a lot of people I know, so…what the hell?

But the rest of the day was much nicer – after we got home from the store. I’ve especially been enjoying all the tracks in the snow. In the back there are a few deer that visit routinely. There are Turkey tracks all over the front, especially down near the road. And there are all kinds of critter tracks on the back deck and on the front step and such. They were loving the crusts of bread I’ve been throwing out back.

We have a very wooded lot with hundreds of big old hardwoods, but I wonder if we shouldn’t look into some Wildlife trees to provide treats in the warm weather, and maybe some extra shelter in the winter. I don’t know much about such things, but when it’s below zero for 5 or 6 days in a row, I start feeling really bad for the local critters.