Images of Snow

I finally "get" fake snow. That flocking they put on Christmas trees? Our trees look just like that. The iridescent sheets of cellophane they put in store window displays? Yup, we really get snow that is that sparkly! Or those sheets of polymer wool that they put around train sets, into which they sprinkle handfuls of glitter? Yup, real snow can look like that, too--soft, fluffy, with a twinkle here, a twinkle there.

And those paper snowflakes you cut out when you were a kid? We've got more of those than we can see stars in the sky. Here is the garland that my car window gets when they are just beginning to fall:


And, just for fun, here is a scan of some snow crystals I gathered earlier this week. These were about a foot under the surface, and had been sitting and metamorphizing for at least a week: