Winter is not my favorite season. Most of the things I like to do can’t be done on snow days.

One thing I can do is go outside and look at the snow. Sunny days look great for doing this, but light cloud cover is better.

Snow looks white because if reflects almost all of the light shining on it. After spending some time out looking at snow scenes on a sunny day, everything looks dark inside as the eyes try to recover from the onslaught of reflected light. Even sunglasses don’t help a lot.

Snow may look inviting on a sunny day. It’s still cold. The snow is cold. The air is cold. The snow will melt onto the boots.

I wandered down and out into the pasture below the barn lot. Snow days are pretty until the snow starts to melt and sinks into ice.

This snow did fall in cold temperatures. For a time the flakes were in clumps an inch or two across. Most of the time it fell as tiny ice spheres. These packed together into a heavy, dense snow layer.

Footprints or tire tracks left ice. Sun melted the base layer into ice. Town beckoned, but I stayed home and looked out the windows or tramped to the barn and looked at the snow.

There’s something about snow days. There are lists of things to work on. There are piles of books waiting to be read. There are several writing projects including rewriting “The Carduan Chronicles.”

It isn’t boredom. It’s a restless feeling leaving me casting about for something to hold my interest.

What I really want to do is go outside and walk. The snow is waiting for me with pretty vistas. Trudging through snow in heavy boots ruins a walk while keeping the feet warm and dry.

So I stay inside most of the time. And the snow days drag by.