To tell you about winter where I live, I shall not try to describe winters elsewhere in Texas where the conditions may be far different than where I am.

I live in Central Texas (obviously, from the name, the middle of Texas :). I have lived in Texas all my life and I think it's one of the most wonderful places on earth (well, naturally, I am a little biased).

The very first cold front of the year is so beautifully magical! Usually it will be uncommonly still and almost crushingly humid before the first clod front comes in. Wherever you may find yourself; working outside, doing school-work, feeding the animals, inside resting from the warmth or just in bed at night - where we live, you can always hear cold fronts come in, but especially if you are inside.

"Winter Where I Live"
By: T.C. Hackney

Yes, believe it or not, winter does come to Texas. And though our Texas winters may not be considered really cold ones by some, they are both cold and winter to us. Since I am only going

We live in a wonderful house that was built in the 1920s and we also live on a rather large hill. Needless to say, for any of those reasons and after I explained that, you could doubtless understand why we can hear cold fronts blow in.

I'm usually in bed when it comes, though the ones which come during the day are the most gloriously exciting.

So there I lay, sleepless, looking blankly at the ceiling with only a thin sheet over me because it's been so warm, I would sweat in bed if I had more cover. Suddenly, a gust hits our house. My room is at the front of the house so I get the best "experience". :-) The gust isn't huge, only a great change from the silence preceding it. Naturally, I know what is happening and get quite excited ... I've been hoping it would come!

Cold fronts bring a sort of intangible beauty to everything. They bring a clarity to the landscape which was once miraged in humidity. The nights and days are much clearer than they are in the summer. The sunsets are more brightly defined, and the moon and stars sparkle with the brilliance if diamonds set in the rich, dark, velvety sky. Cold fronts bring a fresh and revitalizing wind which lends ecstasy not only to your lungs but also to your whole body. You see cold fronts are just exciting - in an indescribable way.

The gust begin to come in earnest now. And although the gust come in great gust and may have a few pauses now and again, they never follow a pattern - the only pattern they follow may be irregularity. The size of the gust may range anywhere between the huge, thundering ones to the tiny, whispering ones. Our wonderful old strong house creaks and crackles - it amazes me at the gust it has withstood!

The sound the wind makes when it comes against our house on this hill? You've heard about it in stories, or heard it in movies - you may have heard it yourself. It's a great and languid sigh - so many times called forlorn; for that's the best word for this gentle, soft moaning.

I love this sound - it's the sound of winter. I've come to associate it with some of the greatest joys. Like perhaps a windy evening with my family in the living room where we might be found having popcorn, or hot chocolate, maybe watching a movie together, perhaps setting up the Christmas tree, or just laughing together.

The fierce blowing winds most likely last about 24 hours. Then eventually they die down until they are only whispering gust - even these are lovely.

The first cold morning after the cold front has come in is the most exciting. Usually I wake up to find that Mama has put extra covers on me and she has turned on the heater. She must have seen ma balled up trying to keep warm early in the morning from the cold that blew in during the night.

Hoping out of bed, I scuffle quickly into the living room where Mama has built a warm fire and awaits me in her chair with a smile and a fun comment about the cold that came.

Cold always comes very suddenly here.

Not very long ago I found myself studying the "sciences" of winter in our part of Texas. It is great fun and I have found some sort of "patterns" that the cold front's follow here. Some follow this pattern and some don't. Alot just suddenly strike from the North very hard, and without warning.

However, alot of times when a cold front is to come in you will notice a light breeze coming from the South. This breeze picks up momentum until it is a great gale - like the winds from the North (unusual because cold always comes from the North here). But in time you will notice this wind shifting to South-West and eventually North-West and finally, North - and this North wind bringing with it the great cold we have been anticipating.

If we have a mild winter here in Central Texas (and we usually do), our cold fronts don't last but about a week. We rarely get very far below freezing - I think we got down to 28 this year - but the lowest we usually get is 30 or 32. The coldness even has a pattern. At the first of the cold front it's of course "coldest" - usually 30s or low 40s. Then through the week the temperature rises slowly every day a little until by the end of the week it will reach the 60's to high 60s. (Reason not to put up your summer clothes.) At this time, when things are getting a little too warm for winter, you can usually tell another cold front is due or on it's way. After the warm stillness comes another cold front - and so the pattern goes almost all winter - but there are always exceptions, too.

Though we very rarely get snow, we may get an occasional ice-storm (or, rather "icing down") and we get ice-frost quite often, which is one of my favorites. There is nothing like looking out your window first thing in the morning and gazing upon this marvel. You see your entire world covered with the frosty shimmer of diamond which sparkles in every ray of sunlight that pours upon the enchanted spectacle.

Mist to me has an equally magical beauty to it. Whether it is in the morning, caressing the pastel colors of the newly-awakened winter world, or at night, clothing the land with exquisite mystery. I remember one night especially this winter. The moon had just risen in the East, illuminating the thick blanket of fog with a strange, soft, glowing brilliance, bringing, not unearthliness, but an enchantment to everything enveloped in it. The foggy-mist rose higher than most humans are. If you looked out over a vast open field, it would glow, shimmering in it's own way the moon's reflections. If you looked into a grove of great, old oak trees they would stand there, very darkly silhouetted against the illuminated atmosphere which enveloped them looking forlornly, yet beautifully mystic.

It looks just like a scene that they forgot to put in Lord of The Rings.

In fact my family often jokes that they should film Lord of The Rings on our land. For it looks just like the land you see in Lord of The Rings (or maybe I should say ... New Zealand? :-). It's not exactly a wasteland and it's not exactly a wilderness, but it does have those gloriously stark capabilities to it.

The woods are thickly wooded with copious shrubbery enshrouding the magnificent trees which many times have large vines entwined in their massive limbs.

Trees out in the open may also have vines and shrubbery framing them. Sometimes huge rocks lay underneath them for one to sit on and gaze out over the winter landscape - thinking, remembering, or just dreaming.

The open fields lie open, rolling with easy grace - perhaps there may be a solitary giant of a tree. The grass is now of a light green-tan color and lies, heavy, thickly on the ground - soft enough to lie down on. Almost like a marsh, except with no water.

I hope you have enjoyed hearing about winter where I live! (On the other hand you may have been bored ... beyond sanity.) I have certainly enjoyed writing to you about my beautiful experiences and memories of Texas winters where I live, and I hope you have had an equally wonderful experience reading about them!