Our Third Winter

This will be our third winter in Santa Fe. On December 21 it arrives, and we're hoping it brings warmer weather.

Because fall has been so wintry already. It's been very cold since early October, the gardens gave up precipitously well before Halloween and several snow storms have fallen. Except for an afternoon or two when it was tolerable to sit outside in the sun briefly, we've been indoors for 10 weeks already with the heat on.

Winter can only get warmer, right?

Our first fall and winter here it was strangely balmy and dry, and the locals told us it was unusual. We could sit outside all winter as long as the sun was out. The air was crisp, the sunshine was warm and it was very nice.

Last fall and winter not so much. Cold and snowy. And often very gray from the first of October til the end of April. This fall has been a repeat of last year's chill weather. Will winter now improve things?

We didn't move here for the warm winters, we knew it got cold. But there has been some shady doings going on here, luring us into frigid falls after mollifying us that first year.

I blame that trickster coyote.

Who else would make us fall in love with a place and its temperate, gentle climate and then unleash two bad winters on us just to see if we'd really stay.

Yeah, coyote. We'll stay.