What a difference a few hours made. Lamb-like during the morning, a roaring lion by noon. The front moved south and settled down with its freezing-precipitation zone over Central New Jersey, and there it sat for 18 hours. The folks up north got tons of snow, South Jersey was rained upon, and we were pelted with sleet, sleet, and more sleet. The pellets were very fine and packed themselves into an almost solid mass around four inches thick. There may have been a few minutes of rain toward the end that glued it all together.

Saturday morning, the sky cleared, and Kona patrolled the dining room window, grateful that she is now a warm house cat, not the little vagrant that was found on a West Virginia country road two years ago.

I can happily report that our township plows did a marvelous job of clearing our cul-de-sac, with attention even to our driveway entrance, but there are now piles of ice along our curbs that are going to remember this storm for many days. What is on the driveway is too heavy to shovel and not what snow blowers are made to handle, so it will have to melt by itself. Warmer temperatures are ahead, and, believe it or not, spring is coming soon.