SNOW TELLING

 

 

Looking out our front door.  Even the air looked blue most of the day.

 

Caro called down the stairs last night, “Mama!   You know it’s colder here than in Canada, than Nome, than in ANTARCTICA!!! They just said our wind chill makes it colder than ANY of those cold places!”  Now THAT will make you think.  

 

And it was: -14 with Wind Chill of -36, with all the treacheries of some of the most beautiful things.

The Baby Maples I planted some eight years ago, when they were an inch high and rescued as they peeked out from beneath the edge of the about-to-be-removed above-ground pool which came with the house.  I gently dug up the three with a teaspoon that Spring, planted them into the rich, loamy circle from which a stark dead tree had been excavated, and they’ve grown wonderfully tall, standing more than thirty feet, now, snow-laced and magnificent.   Isn't that whole Circle of Life thing simply magical?

 

 

The front porch, just beyond the swing of the door---the snow is more than a foot high, like big slanted pillows on a bed, and I'm standing on the bare wood with my toes within inches of the swell.   See the darkness in the right corner---that’s bare grass, for the eaves are very deep, and the stuff fell straight down in great damp clumps, like big ole cornflakes. 

 

 

This flowerpot is fourteen inches tall, and I watched it grow round and plump with the dome of snow like a thickly-frosted cupcake, before the pot disappeared completely into that white blanket.   For a time, it looked like one of those big molded-plastic ads outside Dairy Queen--garnished appropriately with a lingering sheaf of Queen Anne's lace.

 

THE TREE in the back yard---this one is more than a sixty-footer, and is flaunting more filigree than Faberge’s fondest dreams.    

 

Dear old Weather Bush and Luck Bush---they both finally bowed to the heavy loads as the snowfall went on and on through the night and day.

 

It seemed so SILENT here, for we've been totally shut down---by Royal Command and Sovereign Decree, as it were, for no wheels rolled save for the salt trucks.   They went about the countryside like medieval carts strewing tribute to the frost-spewing dragons, and the onslaught ceased. 

 

 

It was so odd to know such a muted landscape, and at twilight, I half-expected the ghost of Thomas Kincade to come strolling out of the fog, like Mr. Darcy.

 

May you all be warm safe and well.