Amazing! - UPDATE

Picture by Juliefainart. I really feel like I'm in fairyland tonight, so this was really the best picture.

I really can't believe this. It happened again, (twice in one week???? But it NEVER happens!!!) only it's more amazing, and I've seen something I don't really remember ever seeing before.

We got a nice dusting of snow today, maybe an inch or half inch. Sure enough, it was the separate, snowflake-shaped, individual crystals yet again, only with a little accumulation, and it never changed into something else, as I thought it would. So I'm getting out of the car after work, and the streetlight shows me the ground cover, and I had to lean down and get a better look at it. I swear I was looking at pure, sparkling diamonds strewn across the ground. Thankfully it's not one of those orange lights, but had a nice blue tint to it, a little closer to moonlight. There is moonlight too, but it's not full, unfortunately, so not quite bright enough to have the same effect. It was bizarrely dazzling.

Called my daughter to come look at it with me, and we both looked for a minute, rather stunned. Can anything outside of the bottom of a 7th grade girl's locker be THAT sparkly? I realize sparkles are out of favor in graphics, but surely it is all right when they just drop out of the sky and surprise you.

I said, again, "This doesn't happen all the time!" As a matter of fact I don't remember ever seeing anything quite like this. She picked up a small handful, and it looked like she was literally holding a handful of diamonds in the light. I ran out back to see it in just moonlight; but not quite bright enough to do the same thing. Then brought a handful in to look at under the light, and whoah! You could still see all the individual snowflakes! THAT'S why all the endless sea of tiny little dazzling sparks! It's reflecting on countless tiny surfaces of pure crystal! Wooooot!!!!

The above is made with polymers, but that's what it looks like for REAL. Only better.

I want to keep bringing handfuls in and looking at the sparkling, and at all the individual flakes that have not compressed, but it almost feels like I'm killing them as they melt. So then I had to quickly eat it so as not to waste them or feel like I'm hurting them or something hehe.

Thankfully it is absolutely bitterly cold, so those little guys aren't going anywhere for the rest of this night. I'm sure to be going back out a few times to marvel at this one. What a rare gift to receive twice. Maybe I just got a little wink from the heavens for appreciating it last time and not being able to share it. Isn't that a nice thought?

This? Not quite as pretty as what I'm seeing. But it'll last longer.

Of course if I was insane I might think it's a conspiracy. Like the aerosol rainbows near the ground - below:

Update!! I went out in the morning, and thankfully our absolutely frigid temps have held steady below 15. FULL SUN but only 15 degrees!

So I looked on the ground, and not only was it sparkling like a full load of diamond dust, it was OF COURSE reflecting the colors as well (something I hadn't foreseen!!) My entire lawn was made up of COUNTLESS, blinding, colors. Each spark was a color - deep blue, deep red, deep green, deep orange - but they were all put together in a BLANKET of FIRE. Blue, red, green, purple fire, all staring up at me from the cold cold ground. Again, you do not see this every day. Normally the sun equals melting. I'm dumbfounded. More!!!! More!!!

completely different phenomenon. Just one of those things. It doesn't sparkle even a little bit.