Eighteen inches. It snowed eighteen inches in one day. Now some of you are rolling your eyes and laughing at this. Some of you see eighteen inches of snow in two hours. Some of you only see snow when you watch the Winter Olympics (and why are YOU watching winter sports you’d never participate in since you are without anything deserving the name "winter"? Yes, this former Californian has become a winter-snob). However, SOME of us aren’t used to eighteen inches of snow in one day.
Nor are we accustomed to having the ground so saturated and
the temperature so consistently below freezing that our gardens are hidden from
view, and our snow-heavy trees are bent so far over they look ironically like
arbors at Santa’s Village.
I turn around just in time to see the Douglas Firs and Western Red Cedars menace our house with their white bulk. They fill the air with groans and sudden cracks as another limb breaks from the trunk and crashes to the ground.
But when it just barely started to warm up, when the sun
burned through the iron-grey skies for just a few hours, something lovely
happened. First, a few large mounds of
snow slid off a branch of one of our towering trees and crashed to the
ground with sparks of snow-bits leaping into the air. Then another.
And then another. They had held on through the snow-weight and cold. Now, the newly
released branches sprang back up into place, animating the frozen forest. So
magical. Then so many that it seemed
like arboreal slapstick. Alas, no photos. Too busy watching and laughing.
Then the ice in the pond began to break up and recede, and a few ducks attempted a swim. Soon, I think, it might be spring.
Beautiful! Thanks, Cuz.
ReplyDeleteThank you for visiting, dear cousin.
DeleteOkay, I am REALLY impressed by 18" of snow in one day! Yikes!
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by, Beth! We were impressed too. As were our phone lines--a tree took them down and we were without a land-line and internet for 5 days. Oh the horror!
DeleteI am not a snow snob, and that's too much snow for anyone in one day...we were thinking that the 6 inches overnight were too much.
ReplyDeleteLove the snow-sparks reference...beautiful.
Jen
Thank you, Jen. It was gorgeous. I'm sure Bootsie thought 6 inches was way too much snow.
DeleteI thought you were still in soCal. :o) 18" is a lot if you don't live in snow country. But it is fun to watch and your photos are beautiful. This piece was well written and fun to read. Snow does bring its own theatrics that are easily missed. :o)
ReplyDeleteHey Tammy. Haven't been a SoCal girl since June 30th, 2007. At some point I'll cross some line and be able to be seen as a Northwesterner. "They" will let me know.
DeleteThank you so much for the kind words about the writing. They meant a lot.
Oh the snow... 18" is quite a covering. The photos are beautiful and so is the landscape. More snow happening here, it seems like Spring is on hold for now.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Donna! I would imagine Spring takes a bit longer to arrive for you folks. One can dream.
DeleteSome beautiful pictures, I especially like the second one with the pond. The branches coated with ice are so lovely, though not so great for the trees.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Jason! So far, those trees appear to be righting themselves. Even a section of bamboo that was completely flattened has come back. But other trees came down.
DeleteI think 18 inches of snow in two hours is a HUGE amount of snow, even for us in cold Ontario. My experience of snow out West is that it is somehow more "civilized" than snow here. It falls peacefully in big flakes like in an old movie, whereas here is is often mixed with wind.
ReplyDeleteYou photos are beautiful. The house looks very comfortable nestled in the trees and the pond looks magical.
Thank you so much, Alain. From what I've seen in East and Mid-West US and Canadian blogs, I'd have to agree. Winters appear to be fierce there where ours are sneaky. They're very pretty and then they quietly attempt to suffocate!
DeleteI’ve got one foot in each camp…I am originally from Norway and was used to masses of snow for 5 months a year, my sister had 6’ of snow in her garden last week! But the last 15 years I have been living in London and got spoiled with one teeny snowfall per winter, if any at all, some winters even frost-free, like this winter. I think it would be a rather shock to the system spending a winter back in Norway after all this time – not to mention the below minus 30 F degrees we had every winter for a few weeks where I used to live!
ReplyDeleteLoved your photos though, really beautiful, brought back memories :-)
Thanks, Helene! Yikes, I would imagine a winter in Norway would make ours look like blips of white candy.
DeleteBrrr…beautiful shots! 18 inches of snow is plenty. In the Portland metro area, two inches of the white stuff shuts the city down. Seriously. I laughed along with you as you described the thaw.
ReplyDeleteHi Laura, thanks! It's funny that larger cities like Portland have trouble with small amounts of snow. Having said that, you can tell the difference up here between where Whatcom county is in charge of keeping roads clear and where the city of Bellingham is. We're in the county and driving into town is a breeze until we hit the part of the road that the city is responsible for. Then it's slide-city!
DeleteHi Emily, those snowy winter scenes are incredible. They're all the more so because we didn't have a single snowflake fall where we live in the UK, the whole winter was mild, wet and distinctly lacking in snow. Even frost was a rarity, occurring just a few times. It just goes to show what a roller coaster the weather can be.
ReplyDeleteHi Sunil. Winter has indeed been crazy this year. After that snow finally melted--it took a rather long time--spring sprang quickly here. No complaints!
ReplyDelete