Millions of Diamonds

Sunshine this morning, brilliant sunshine making the hoarfrost on the snow covered fields sparkle like millions of diamonds. As I was walking up to the barn I couldn't help marveling at the beauty and regretted not having the camera with me.  On the walk the phone was used to take the picture below but the phone just doesn't do the diamonds justice.

Dan posted a couple pictures of the thick hoarfrost in the early morning sunshine that turned the diamonds into gold.

Today the van was taken to East Peoria Tire and Vulcanizing to get all new tires. We debated on getting snow tires but instead bought the Firestones. They will last much longer and we don't really drive the van in snow much. In the picture below the one on the bottom is the snow tire and the one on top is what I chose. 

Our guests sent a message that they had a visitor last night, a bird flew down the chimney and into the wood burner. They put a cover over the wood burner and the bird was silent. This morning they named him Peep and this afternoon with a group effort opened the wood burner door and the front door were able to get Peep to fly away outside. 

Mark finished putting the snow tires on my car so we are both good to go.  Usually many pictures are taken of the first snow fall but yesterday having 4 inches of wet heavy snow was just too discouraging.