…Unless you’re willing to deal with its arrival. The temperature this morning when we got up was a brisk -4ºF (-15ºC); the high for the day will be a glorious 13ºF (-20ºC) though the wind chill will make it feel more like -21ºF (-30ºF). I think even the Siberians would consider that cold.

It’s a beautiful (and cold) day

The good news is that the cold snap has ensured snow-making conditions in the Catskill Mountains if still not much by way of natural snow. For the first time this winter, my older son and I got on the local ski mountain both days of the weekend, and I finally regained that sense of satisfaction that has been missing from the winter so far: a sense, quite honestly, that I would be happy doing this – skiing in decent conditions, my now highly competent snowboarding son racing alongside me, under a bright blue sky on a crisp winter day – for the rest of my life.

A better Sunday scene would be hard to imagine