A Lark Under the Snow

Minus fourteen.
Fourteen
Below
Zero.
That's how cold it is here tonight. That doesn't even account for windchill, which makes it even more deadly.
Driving home tonight I noticed how snakes of crystalline snow seemed to loop and coil across the road, illuminated in the headlights of the car. The flocks of horned larks and snow buntings that I'd seen all week gathered in flocks beside the roads, eating grit from the snowplows, were gone tonight. No doubt they had settled in a field somewhere under an insulating blanket of snow, gathered in a tight knot for warmth. There were few cars out. Some wouldn't start. Others started, but took an impossibly long time to warm up. Roads were encrusted in crunchy snow, and underneath that was hard, glassy ice.
I'm glad to be home for the night. I'll just pile on the blankets and the Roxy and settle down for this bitter night like a lark under the snow.