i was slightly traumatized by the weather: a slight rain/snow combination turned into about two inches here, and six in town, which is 1600 feet higher; it fell so fast and so slippery that some of the steep hills were solid ice. one problem on these mountain roads is that though you can turn into the mountain, if you go the other way, and have no brakes, you go straight off a cliff. the trees might catch you down there, but it won't be pretty as you go tumbling, with your car, down the mountain. and on the ice, you have no brakes. that's the problem. the car is sliding around, and you have no control.

we have learned to put it in first gear, and not use brakes. let the car turn its wheels straight down the mountain, never going more than about ten, and get whatever traction first gear allows you, and at that speed, with your wheels always turning, you actually do have a little more control. and you can hug the mountainside if you want, so you don't go over the edge.

so i'm coming down the mountain in this rapidly falling snow, and i had all the kids going to school, all four of them. they got a show. we slid a little. it was before they plowed. but we made it to school on time. i had to decide, then, whether to come back. a sheriff told me that they were plowing out here, so it would be easier coming back. and it was. less snow, more pavement, easier to see.

we had another trip, in the afternoon, to go get the kids from school. most of the school seems remarkably unconscious of the trouble we go through just to get them there and get them home. one boy has a birthday party; one girl wants us to hang around town for a while. hang around town? town had six or seven inches; ice in all the driveways; dark was coming, no, we just wanted to get home.

when we get home, it's a slightly more predictable world. there is less snow than in town, maybe only an inch or two. as long as there's power, we have our amenities and our usual spotty internet. deer are everywhere. someone said they come to the private lands during hunting season. i guess they know private land from the forest, and go where they've learned to go, in order to survive. those hunters, i'm not sure what they'll get this year, sitting out there in their trucks, blizzard after blizzard, waiting to pop some deer. i'm not sure exactly how this works. but if i was a hunter, i'd be grateful to be able to sit somewhere, still, warm enough hopefully, and not have to get out on the icy roads. the icy roads have set my wife back a little, made her wonder if we really want to spend our sunset years out on the icy cliffs. it would be a bad way to find out that your primary senses were beginning to fail.