The Joy of Snow

I feel it’s a bold step to title this, “The Joy of Snow”, for I can imagine the hate mail that could follow from all of you Northern folks who are half crazed with cabin fever, or are frozen to the bone with a fear of never being warm again.  To all of you, I apologize for the following essay.  For that matter, you probably shouldn’t read any further unless raising your blood pressure might warm you up somehow.

You may have seen that even Texas has gotten snow in this wild winter, but sadly, I am in South Central Texas where the most we can hope for is freezing rain, which, in fact, if falling right now.  AND it is the reason I can write this for otherwise we would be outside.  My husband would be balancing precariously on a ladder, on the parts where it says you definitely shouldn’t balance, to reach the dead branches that need pruning on the Live Oak trees. I would be monitoring his progress with my finger poised to dial 911 should he fall.

 This pruning is an endless task in late winter for they manage to have A LOT of small dead branches.  If you wait until spring to prune, you risk getting the dreaded oak wilt, a fungus carried by insects, then spread through the roots of the tree killing all other live oaks in the vicinity. 

  This is Texas, land of superlatives, so of course it is the MOST DESTRUCTIVE tree disease in the US! Of course.  It is the reason no blogs have been forthcoming lately because all free time is spent pruning.

But I digress.  I have lived with very deep snow.  In Watertown NY, the average snowfall is 93” but approaches 200” in the snow belt south of there, which is where Ft Drum is. 

 When we lived there the snow covered the first story windows, you came in the house through a tunnel that made the whole place look very Hobbit-like and I loved it.  Granted, my only job was to take my daughter sledding right out the back yard each day and make sure we had our daily dose of hot chocolate.

 My second daughter was born there in Feb and I had nightmares about giving birth in a snowdrift, but that actually didn’t happen. It was often well below zero.  I know the tricky problem of not being able to exhale in a car because it instantly turns to ice on the inside of your windshield.  So I can empathize, yet even there, to the chagrin of all the Southerners ready to shoot their refrigerators, I LOVED it, and was sad when in MAY it finally stopped snowing!

All those winters on Cape Cod, I didn’t miss a day of walking my dog and I remember occasionally trudging through hip-deep snow to reach the railroad tracks that bordered the cranberry bog.  Once on the tracks, I was breathless, not only from the exertion getting there but also from the knock-your-socks off beauty that lay before me.  A field of diamonds!  I think you have all had that “diamond” snow this year.  The snow produced in such cold weather that each flake is rigid and reflecting light back to a dazzling degree.  Growing up as a fan of Paul Simon, I was always humming, “She’s Got Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes”, and I did.  Plus I felt just as “rich” as if they were the real thing.

 

Then, there is the joy of tracking; there is no better substrate to track in, well wet sand or mud is better I suppose, but for seeing the intricate pattern of a crows wingtips as he launched, or his skid marks as he landed, you need snow for that.   In snow, I would find out that my backyard was a veritable Interstate for coyote and fox travel. How easy to compare the long-fingered, jumping tracks of squirrels to the rounded tracks of rabbits, all laid out, clear as a bell before you. I miss that. 

Of course, the day after the blizzard there are virtually no signs, for the animals have “holed up” during the storm, but eventually, those who aren’t hibernating have to come out and look for food, so tracks will show up.

Remember though, one can be fooled by tracks in melting snow, for the imprint gets larger as it melts and you might convince yourself moose have moved in, when it really was a deer, or bears, where it started as a coyote track.  Some common sense is required. Not likely Bigfoot lives in your back yard!   

EVENTUALLY then, the snow will melt and another whole new world will be on display, the “Subnivian” world.  A world I have written about in a past blog, but is worth writing again; the revealing of the reveling that is going on under the snow that none of us sees now, but will when the snow melts.  Clues that will be left to remind you in summer how high the snow had been in winter. That can be the topic of the next blog.

I do have sympathy for all that you “blizzard bound” people have been going through.  I know it has cost a lot of lost work time, a lot of revenue for some, and a lot of injured backs or worse.  Please don’t think I have callous disregard for your troubles.  I don’t.  But the earth is spinning on its axis and gradually tipping us closer to the sun.  Friday, March 20^th, the first day of spring, is less than 3 weeks away!  Hold on then, and have another cup of hot chocolate, it’s on me.